Home Fires Burning
by Eponymous Rose
Summary: Khar'shan, Tiptree, Citadel, Palaven, Earth. Five tales from the Reaper War. This is the way the worlds end.
1. Prologue: Freefall

**Prologue: Freefall**

Dehkarr drifted and watched the world turn lazily beneath his feet.

Somewhere far below, a storm barked lightning, clouds twisting and writhing in their death throes as the weather modification fields shaped them, sapped them, until only wisps escaped to flow placidly over the gritty smear that was the great megatropolis of Tarlahk. Over the southern continent, a glittering sea of millions upon millions of migrating birds caught the sun's light, lending much-needed mystery to the dull, swampy marshlands below. Long, unbroken streets of cloud pressed lengthwise against the mountain ranges, crisscrossed here and there by the contrails of suborbital flitters.

Some part of him recognized and appreciated the sheer impossible beauty of what was happening below him. Some part of him marveled at all the lives down there, spread out across tracts of land he could spend a dozen lifetimes exploring. A much bigger part of him, however, was currently much more concerned with the fact that he was about to lose his lunch.

"I hate null-gee," he groaned.

His shitty old radio sparked and crackled, making his tin can of a suit feel even more claustrophobic. "Oh, suck it up," Sarbash said. "Literally, if you have to. I'm not cleaning puke out of your suit again. No way they pay me enough for that."

Dehkarr snorted and tried to hold his head very still. The secret, he'd heard, was never to tilt your head. Something to do with the way the fluids in the ear canal moved, the scientists said. Hell, he'd always figured the real secret was not to wander into null-gee in the first place, but no, he'd just had to apply for the network admin job. He'd just had to go and make himself indispensable. Problem with a refueling station's ventilation system? Send Dehkarr, he's good with electronics. Unexplained orbital decay? Dehkarr to the rescue, again.

Weather satellite sending you some weird fucking readings? You know who to call.

He risked turning his head, very slowly, to shoot a venomous glare at the little passenger freighter that was currently serving as the other end of his suit's oxygen umbilical. It wasn't like Sarbash could actually see him in there – especially since the faceplate on this cheap-ass suit was so scuffed up it was practically opaque – but it did make him feel a bit better.

Then, painstakingly, he turned back to the job at hand, which involved unscrewing a panel from the antiquated weather satellite that had, earlier that day, broadcast a forecast of twenty million degrees for Sherak Capital. He couldn't imagine that going over particularly well. _Today: Death and fire and spontaneous combustion, with a chance of lava. Tomorrow: partly cloudy._

Anyway, the problem wasn't so much the screwy readouts as it was the fact that the satellite had stopped communicating thereafter. And, of course, nobody had bothered to install a proper haptic interface that'd allow him to run diagnostics from his nice, comfortable, gravity-filled office back home. No, apparently it was actually more cost-effective to blast him into orbit every few months than it was to upgrade. Sometimes he hated the Protheans for coming up with the whole cheap-and-easy mass effect technology thing. Progress wasn't always a step forward.

"You're just afraid of falling," Lathira had told him, when he'd been complaining to her over the vidscreen the night before. "It's perfectly natural. Being in orbit is like falling and falling while the ground keeps forgetting to catch you. That's scary stuff." And she was an astrophysicist, so Dehkarr figured she knew what she was talking about. Granted, that was pretty much always the case, no matter the subject. Lathira did nothing by halves: she considered, contemplated, weighed options, and made the best possible assessment based on the data at hand. He figured the only truly inexplicable thing she'd ever done in her life had been to marry him.

But thinking about Lathira mostly just succeeded in reminding him that she was still visiting her sister on Omega. Two weeks apart was a new record for them, and all the vid calls and dirty omnitool messages they could muster weren't doing much to fill the gap between them. He sighed, finally managed to jerk the panel free without slicing his suit's gloves on the jagged edges. "One of these days, Sarbash, I'm going to ask for hazard pay. You are going to go fucking _broke_."

In reply, the radio made a weird buzz in his ear, kind of high-pitched and warbling, and after a couple seconds he recognized it as a softer and less obnoxious version of the suit's automated warning system. He'd lowered the volume as far as safety regulations would allow, because there were only so many times you could hear about all the firmware upgrades now available for low, low prices. This particular tone, however, sounded important, so he settled back from his work and cranked up the volume.

"-initiating transition to emergency oxygen tank. Three point six hours of oxygen remaining. Warning-"

He grimaced, shoving the plating back into place with a bit more force than was strictly necessary. "Sarbash, what the fuck? It's one thing to cut corners on the suit, but the oxygen supply? I mean-"

He turned around to deliver another scathing glare at Sarbash's ship. It was gone.

The umbilical wiring had been cleanly severed by the ship's systems – there it was, a mass of tubes just sort of hanging out in space, attaching his suit to nothing in particular. Turning back to the satellite, he latched his magboots onto it – at this point, anything bigger than him seemed like a decent way to anchor himself. "Sarbash?" No reply. Not even static.

_Move slowly_, he thought. _Don't panic_. But all that seemed to be doing was stretching out the queasy feeling in his stomach so it was just one long, unbroken wave of nausea. This was way, way beyond budget cuts or practical jokes. This was attempted murder, damn it! Sure, he and Sarbash hadn't exactly seen the world with the same eyes over the years, but Sarbash had always struck him as the kind of guy to settle a grudge at the bar. Not in orbit.

He made the mistake of looking back down to the planet. Now all the inspirational, infinite variety just seemed like a big blur, the only recognizable landmarks being the parts of the planet that looked like they'd be particularly painful to crash into from geosynchronous orbit. Which was pretty much everything.

Fear of falling. Perfectly natural. Right.

The suit's damn VI warned him that he was hyperventilating, and helpfully suggested an upgrade to his CO2 scrubber software, only 59 credits per day if he ordered now. He shut off the warnings. He must have glanced at the sun at some point, because red and orange spots danced in front of his eyes. Wasn't that a symptom of oxygen deprivation?

The fear of suffocating, of choking on vacuum and drifting forever, was what snapped him back to himself. He forced one long, slow breath, then another. He was clinging to the satellite, and together they were falling, falling, and the world below turned and turned and never caught them.

On the surface, smoke was rising. He could see great plumes of it, stretched and warped and twisted by the uncaring winds. He blinked again, still trying to clear the orange and red spots from his vision. _Fire_, he thought.

Something was looming.

He turned slowly and squinted into the darkness, the faint pinpricks of stars almost overpowered by the reflected glow of the planet. Something was moving among them, blocking them, the stars scintillating, here and gone, here and gone. Something dark and massive and empty.

The ships – for they were ships, cold and metal and roaring with foghorn voices – brushed past him, and only now could he see the others already on the surface, black like bugs swarming on the burning cities. Things were falling around him, debris, bits of ships that had once flown Hegemony colors, spy satellites smashed from orbit into irrelevance. They flared briefly in the atmosphere and were gone.

"Three-point-five hours of oxygen remain."

He was numb, empty, he was nothing beyond the distant pressure of the satellite's struts against his gloved hands, the emotionless, inexorable countdown of the suit's VI in his ears. He was moving slowly, slowly, drawing out each thought until it blanketed his mind. He spent the first hour wondering about Sarbash, remembering fights and drinks and laughter. He spent the second dreaming of Lathira, and those dreams were quiet and private, touches and whispers and the distance between.

A transmission murmured over the radio, an evacuation shuttle offering assistance. Faceless, formless people dragged him aboard, and then he was sitting among the sobbing, shaking refugees, staring at his hands, thinking again of the slow tides of fluid in his ears, the slow turn of Khar'shan, the slow burning.

And still he was falling, knowing he would never land.


	2. Night Winds: 1: Endings

**Night Winds: 1. Endings**

It was now the official, carefully considered opinion of Hilary Sarah Moreau that the war with the Reapers was absolute, total _bullshit_.

"Fuck everything about this," she muttered, and slammed the lid of a storage trunk as loudly as she could. From the tinkle of broken glass that followed, she was pretty sure she'd managed to break something inside. The thought made her feel a bit better.

"Language, Hilary," Dad said mildly. He was still staring out the window, which was pretty much all he'd been doing ever since the continent's main center had gone dark two hours ago.

"Fuck, Dad," she said, putting a little extra emphasis on the first word. "It's not like they're going to come down the street and go, hey, mind if we blow up your farm? If the Reapers bother coming out this far from the main settlement, we're gonna be dead before we know what hits us."

She'd been hoping to get a rise out of him, but he only snorted and looked back at her with a wry smile. "So sue me. Call it human nature." The smile turned down into an exaggerated scowl. "And watch your damn language, kiddo."

She turned away to hide her grin, but then she realized she was looking right at a blank wall where their family portraits used to be, and the smile faded almost immediately. "Dad, we should stand and fight."

Now she had his full attention. He moved away from the window and leaned in to talk to her, like she was a little kid again. It never failed to piss her off. "Fight with what?"

She gritted her teeth. "I don't know. Anything! This is our home. We shouldn't just roll over and run away. We can't."

Dad's face tightened, exactly the way it did whenever he thought about Mom. "Sometimes discretion is the better part of valor, Hilary. No shame in retreating."

"Don't give me clichés," Hilary snapped, and even she was shocked at the venom in her voice. "Jeff's out there fighting right now. He doesn't run away, not for anything."

Dad's eyes crinkled for a second, like he was going to cry, and that more than anything made the bottom drop out of her stomach. Then he moved away, went back to loading up his files. "Your brother's an officer in the Alliance. He's a grown man and a trained pilot." He paused, braced himself against the box for a moment. "You're fifteen, Hilary. Please, give me this much. I want you safe. Work with me on this."

Hilary plopped down in one of the kitchen chairs, rubbing her temples. She hated this, hated going from wanting to personally drop-kick every Reaper back into dark space to wanting to burst into tears and hide under the kitchen table until everything was back to the way it used to be. "Dad, I'm sorry. I know you know what you're doing. I just- I was just hoping we could stay a little longer."

He finally turned back to her, and the tears in his eyes made her feel like absolute shit. "You're worried about Laura, right?"

Hilary crossed her arms, defensively. "No. Yes." She heaved a sigh. "I don't know. I don't care. I just want her safe. I don't think I'm even mad at her anymore." And to think that three weeks ago, the worst moment in her life had been walking in on her then-girlfriend with her hand down the pants of some spacer. Talk about perspective.

"I saw some evac shuttles leave the main compound. They probably got the kids out. I'm sure she's okay."

'Yeah. I hope so."

They were quiet a while longer, loading up the supplies, and this time Hilary was the one to sneak glances out the window. Smoke was still rising over the horizon. She wondered about Earth – they'd lost their newsfeeds a long time ago. She wondered about Jeff. She wondered about Laura.

When she looked back, Dad had gone still, his face pale and tight, and then she heard it, too, the roar of engines, the unmistakeable sound of a vessel approaching.

His eyes met hers, and another wash of panic ran through her. She realized she was holding a candlestick, of all things, gripping it so tightly that her knuckles had gone white, and she thought, a little wildly, _Come and get it, you bastards, this thing's heavier than it looks._

Then the more rational part of her mind intervened, the part that made her hang out after classes to chat with the ex-Alliance engineer who taught physics, the part that knew very well what the engine of an asari shuttle sounded like. She laughed, way too loud in her relief, and Dad shot her such a baffled look that she had to clap a hand over her mouth to keep from bursting out laughing again. When he finally realized what he was hearing, he shot her a dizzying grin, and then they were both scrambling for the door. By the time they reached the makeshift landing pad, half the farmers in the outskirt settlements were there.

The asari shuttle was, without question, the most beautiful thing Hilary had ever seen.

Well, until the door opened and a couple of battle-weary asari commandos staggered out. Tiptree was a human colony with no particular tourist attractions – unless farm implements were your thing – so the most Hilary could claim in terms of exposure to aliens was the half-remembered early childhood she'd spent on Arcturus Station. And the extranet, of course, but you never knew how much of that was real, and how much was just some troll screwing with the stupid colony kids. Okay, yeah, she had come across a hell of a lot of pictures and vids of asari, some of which she'd taken great pains to ensure her father hadn't caught her browsing, but they didn't exactly do justice to the real thing.

The asari wore scuffed-up battle armor, and the one in front had a gash across her forehead that she seemed only to notice when she had to make an annoyed swipe at the blood every now and then. They were tall and strong and carried their arsenal of weaponry like it was just another part of them, their every movement a picture of easy, economical grace. It was like they didn't even realize what badasses they were, Hilary thought, and straightened her shoulders in unconscious imitation.

The one in front holstered her pistol – Hilary didn't know the make, guns weren't really her thing, but it was something appropriately sleek and graceful – and jogged up to greet Julie Feng, the de facto leader of their little farming district. They spoke in low tones, and Hilary started to wish she'd learned how to lip-read. Whatever was going on, it was pretty much a given that she wouldn't get the whole story. Kids never did. Apparently you gained a special superpower when you were eighteen that magically made you able to cope with the apocalypse. Who knew?

She didn't realize she'd been drifting away from the others and closer to the shuttle until she was nearly on top of it. The second commando was crouched next to the thrusters, trying to prize a jagged bit of shrapnel loose from the system. Hilary crouched down, keeping her distance, barely daring to breathe lest she get scolded and sent off to do some more all-important standing around. She watched.

It was funny how similar asari and human tech was when you got right down to it, and not all of it was because of technological cross-pollination after first contact. Hilary had won a prize for the essay she'd written on the topic, about how universal physical laws had dictated the course of engineering, which in turn had forced technological development along certain parallel lines the galaxy over. This advanced bit of asari military engineering had a surprising amount in common with the little hobby flitter-jet Jeff let her fly whenever he came home, and that was pretty cool, all things considered.

The asari's hands slipped, banging against the still-smoking engine coils, and she let out a string of curses so startlingly vile that Hilary couldn't help but burst out laughing. She stopped, mortified, when the asari whirled around to glare at her. "Oh, um. Sorry. I didn't mean-"

The asari's features melted into a ridiculously stunning smile. "No, I apologize. It's been something of a long day."

Hilary glanced toward the smoke rising from the horizon, thought again about Laura. "Yeah."

Following her gaze, the asari blew out a long breath, then crouched back to her task. "Can I help you with something?"

That sounded like a genuine inquiry, not a get-out-of-my-face kind of hint, so Hilary ran with it, trying to sound blasé, like her heart wasn't racing a mile a minute. "No, sorry for bugging you. I was just interested in the ship."

"You're into ships?"

The asari shifted over a little, and after a moment's hesitation Hilary crouched down next to her. Crouched down next to a friggin' asari commando to look at the engine of a friggin' asari shuttle. Okay, screw blasé. This was officially the most amazing thing ever. "Yeah, I'm hoping to be a pilot someday. My brother's a pilot in the Alliance." She hesitated. Last she'd heard, Jeff had quit and run off to go do something dangerous with his old commander. Twice. "Sort of."

"Hm," the asari said. Apparently giving up on brute force, she'd started using small biotic fields to tease the piece of shrapnel out of position, and Hilary shut up and watched, fascinated by the tiny twitches of her fingertips that seemed to be the extent of the mnemonic she needed. Two kids in her playschool class back on Arcturus had shown some weak biotic tendencies, but as far as she knew, they'd just manifested in an odd bit of blue glowing and the persistent rumors that one kid had sneezed himself out a bulkhead. This? This was art, plain and simple, like watching a dancer or a musician, the kind that was good enough to make it look effortless. She figured she should probably be jealous, but she was too busy being entranced.

The shrapnel finally jerked free, and the asari gave a little sigh of relief, turning it over in her hands with a grimace. "I swear I thought this was going to be what did us in. Take a near-direct hit from a Reaper, no big deal, but get a bit of metal in the works and bang, it's all over." She sighed again – there was something a whole lot older and more tired in that sound – and tossed the shrapnel away.

Still feeling a little stunned by the whole experience, Hilary watched the sliver of metal soar in its arc. When she looked back, the asari was pushing herself to her feet, dusting off the knees of her armor in what was ultimately a futile gesture, given the caked-on layers of grime. Then she stopped and just sort of smiled awkwardly at Hilary, who just sort of smiled awkwardly back. Dad had apparently noticed her absence and was starting toward her. Somewhere off in the distance, an explosion boomed, a faint echo that sounded like a low, rumbling growl.

In a desperate stab at normalcy, Hilary extended her hand. "I'm Hilary Moreau. Welcome to Tiptree."

The asari shook her hand, solemnly. "Aeian T'Goni. I'm the closest thing we have to a pilot right now. That's Neiara being all bossy over there. Serea and Lori are still on the ship being anti-social."

She paused, glancing back to the smoke billowing over the horizon, then offered a weak smile. "I guess we're here to rescue you."

* * *

As it turned out, there was a bit of an unspoken 'eventually' in the rescue plan.

Hilary managed to leverage her new first-name acquaintance with Aeian to keep Dad from filtering too much of the intel through his what-my-daughter-doesn't-know-can't-hurt-her engine, and she actually wound up being the room while Julie delivered her big speech to the farm owners. Apparently the war with the Reapers was going about as well as could be expected, which was to say that it was absolute shit and everyone was dying horribly. A few asari commando units had been passing through on their way from one battle to the next, had caught Tiptree's frantic distress calls, and had opted to help out.

The first shuttles had managed to evacuate all the children from the main settlement – Hilary breathed a sigh of relief for Laura – before the Reapers' onslaught had pushed the rest of the force to land, shifting the balance to a messy ground war that was likely to be ongoing for the foreseeable future, at least until reinforcements could break the Reaper blockade and they could all run like hell.

Aeian's shuttle – technically, Neiara was in command, but Hilary knew enough about pilots to tell whose ship it really was – had been badly damaged in an earlier battle, killing half its crew, but the survivors, being supreme badasses of the highest order, had still opted to join the rest of the force in their detour to Tiptree. Their little group of commandos had been recalled to the fight, but they wanted to leave one of their own behind to stay with the farmers until arrangements could be made for a full evacuation, Julie concluded.

Hilary glanced at Dad and tried not to make her puppy-dog eyes look too obvious. _She followed me home, Dad, can I keep her?_

He rolled his eyes back at her, then raised his hand. "We have a spare room. Nothing fancy, but we'd be happy to put someone up for the night."

Julie had apparently caught the oh-so-subtle subtext, because she shot Hilary a knowing smile. "I'll see if T'Goni is interested. Thanks, Alain. We'll stop by later tonight and see how things are going."

And just like that, Hilary was torn between mortal embarrassment at being so obvious, and giddy-making joy at getting to spend more time with a friggin' asari commando. The latter won out.

* * *

Aeian didn't have much to bring with her, but Hilary insisted on carrying the little duffel over her shoulder as they walked back to the house. For once, Dad was being very un-Dad-like, walking a few paces ahead to give her a chance to talk to Aeian in private. Of course, now that she had the opportunity, her brain seemed to have turned to mush, and all she could do was blush a lot and not look at Aeian directly. Charming.

After a while, Aeian took pity on her and broke the ice. "You said you wanted to be a pilot. Why aren't you training to be one?"

"I am. Sort of." Hilary swung the duffel a couple times, then remembered it wasn't hers and went back to carrying it more gingerly. "Extra classes after school. My brother helps when he comes home, though he hasn't been in a long time. I've got a ways to go yet."

"How old are you?"

"Fifteen."

Aeian laughed, then held a hand up in apology. "Sorry. I just can't get used to that. Humans are so young. Your father can't be more than, what, a hundred?"

"What?" Hilary guffawed at Aeian's baffled expression. "No! He's, like, fifty."

She was starting to recognize the teasing glint in Aeian's eye. "Children, the lot of you."

And just then, Hilary was starting to realize that she probably should've paid more attention in her xenobio class, but that was the one class she'd shared with Laura, and taking notes hadn't exactly been foremost on her mind. "Why, how old are you?"

Apparently Dad wasn't quite out of earshot, because he glanced back at her with a disapproving scowl. Aeian waved a hand at him. "Don't worry, we don't have a cultural taboo about age unless you feel like you've got something to prove. I'm 259 years old as of last week."

Hilary gaped, and had the vague satisfaction of seeing her dad stumble slightly before resuming his nonchalant pace. She did a little mental arithmetic. Aeian had been born not long after the First World War back on Earth, before humanity had even managed to leave their own planet. "Whoa. I mean, er. Happy birthday?"

She shrugged. "Thanks. You know, commando units actually tend pretty young. I guess we're the only ones still stupid enough to want to do this kind of work. Neiara's the eldest on our ship at 303." Her face darkened a little. "Marin, one of the people we lost, was just 106."

"I'm sorry," Hilary said.

Aeian shrugged again, but this time it seemed forced. "Yeah, well. That's kind of how it goes. People die, people live, and if you try to find a reason for it all you go insane." She scrubbed at the grime on her forehead with the heel of her hand, somehow managing to make the gesture look graceful. "Anyway. Sorry for being all doom-and-gloom. We haven't had much downtime. Or any downtime at all, really. This is what you have to look forward to if you go in for a piloting job with the Alliance, by the way."

Hilary knew Aeian was talking about the grime and the death and the suffering, but it was hard not to imagine herself at the helm of a beautiful, shining ship crewed with beautiful, shining people who did amazing things every day and acted like it was no big deal. "Yeah," she said, trying to sound appropriately sobered.

"So tell me about this colony," Aeian said, and there was a definite humor-the-locals tone to her voice, but somewhere beneath it Hilary figured there was genuine curiosity. She wondered what it would be like to do so many incredible things that the mundane seemed unusual.

"Oh, you know. Farming community, nothing too special. Tiptree's pretty good, as colonization prospects go." She started swinging the duffel again, warming to her topic. "First-in colonists cleared out one rare but deadly bit of natural vegetation, and pretty much everything else grows easily enough. Most of the actual farming's managed by VIs, and there are a few of us for each plot of land to make sure everything goes smoothly. I guess you saw the main settlement already. Not too exciting." She paused. "Well, until recently."

"Hm," said Aeian, and slowed her pace a little, apparently to let Dad get a bit further ahead of them. Curious, Hilary followed suit. "Listen, I... well, I know where you're at right now. Believe me, I know. I ran away from home when I was young. I wanted to see the galaxy."

Hilary felt a chill. She was pretty sure she'd grown out of the whole wanting-to-run-away thing, especially once she figured out what it would do to Dad if she just up and left. She could stick it out in Boringsville until she was an adult, no question of that. Assuming there was still a Boringsville to be stuck in when all this was over.

Still, even when things had showed no signs of ever changing, there was always something at the back of her mind, kinda like that urge everyone got at the edge of a cliff, like you wanted to throw yourself over just to see what would happen.

"But you did see the galaxy, didn't you?"

"Yeah," Aeian said, and glanced back toward the shuttle's landing site with a strange, wistful expression. "Yeah, I kinda did. For me, it worked out. But there were so many ways things could have gone wrong, and I had to make a lot of mistakes to get where I am. You seem like a smart kid, Hilary. Do things right, not fast."

See, why did this sort of thing make sense when Aeian said it, but when Dad said it, it just sounded overprotective, suffocating? Hilary had a weird moment of homesickness for Jeff, which was silly, since he wasn't exactly the world's most responsible adult. But he was her brother. He'd listen without judging, without ulterior motives. She could tell him anything. She hadn't realized how much she missed that.

"Yeah," she said, shaking herself from her reverie. "Yeah, okay."

A little cautiously, Aeian nudged her with her elbow. "Hey, don't look so serious. I know this is a really messed up situation right now, but you'll go nuts if you don't recognize the weirdness in it, take advantage of the moments of rest, the good times."

Hilary tried very hard not to blush at the brief physical contact. "With an attitude like that, I think you're going to get along just fine with me and Dad."

The grin Aeian shot her in return was blinding.

* * *

Okay, so things were a little awkward over dinner. Aeian stood very stiffly in a corner and politely refused to sit down. It took Hilary way too long to realize that she was standing so she could always face the door.

It was a little disconcerting, to be honest, seeing someone so clearly trained to assess threats in every situation, like she and Dad had suddenly been put into danger just by being in the same room with her. But Aeian did relax a little when Dad served up the protein-cube stew – with most of their cooking implements packed up and ready to go, their options for dinner were a little limited – and she wound up wolfing down two servings before sheepishly asking for a third.

Dad was being really thoughtful again, letting Hilary have a lot of time alone to chat with Aeian, which was great but was also kinda starting to creep Hilary out. She figured he was more than a little distracted by the whole looming apocalypse thing, and hey, maybe he thought she could use a little disillusionment about what being a pilot was really like, but it seemed like he was treating her as an adult all of a sudden. Parents were weird. She'd given up trying to understand hers practically from day one.

So she chatted with Aeian about what it was like being a commando, eventually steering her over towards a kitchen chair that still had a decent view of the door, and it felt like a victory when Aeian slumped into the seat at last. Within minutes she'd even relaxed enough to pull a little data chit out of her pocket, flicking it absently between her fingers in a dizzying display of dexterity as she spoke. In spite of the evident sureness of Aeian's hands, now that her own initial adrenaline-rush was starting to wear off, Hilary was starting to notice the sag in Aeian's shoulders, the dullness in her eyes that spoke of plenty of hours of missed sleep.

"You okay?" she asked, during a lull in conversation, and Aeian straightened, a bit guiltily

"Fine." She locked gazes with Hilary for a moment, then rolled her eyes. "Okay, yes, I'll admit that I'm a bit tired. Does it show?"

"Not a bit. I'm just freakishly perceptive."

"That obvious, huh?"

Dad poked his head back into the kitchen before Hilary could come up with a snappy retort. "Aeian, I've set the guest room up for you."

Aeian practically leapt to her feet, pocketing the data chit, as though realizing for the first time that she'd let her guard down. "Oh, thank you. I may just stay on watch tonight, though." She held up a hand to forestall Hilary's protests. "Commandos are trained to get by on very little sleep. I'll be fine."

Hilary drummed her fingers on the table, trying to stare Aeian down with her best disapproving glare. It wasn't doing much good, so she attempted a wheedling smile instead. "How about a shower, at least? You keep mentioning how grimy life is on a starship."

With a snort, Aeian rolled her eyes. "Using my own words against me won't work." She paused. "Water?"

"Of course," Hilary said, wondering what the alternative was on an asari vessel. She pushed the thought of showering asari commandos out of her mind as quickly as possible.

Aeian glanced over to Dad, who was grinning, then sighed and rubbed her forehead. "You drive a hard bargain. All right. I'll have a quick shower."

Dad jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Third door on the left."

"And for my next trick, I'll convince you to get some sleep," Hilary called as Aeian departed with one last backward glance at the door.

"Don't get cocky," Aeian said, and shut the door. A second later, the sound of running water echoed from down the corridor.

Still smiling, Dad sat down across from Hilary. "I'm proud of you, y'know."

Hilary blinked, pretending innocence. "Because I convinced Aeian to take a shower? I didn't think she smelled that bad."

Dad rolled his eyes. "C'mon, Hilary, I'm trying to be all nice and paternal. We're having a moment, here."

With a smirk, Hilary leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms. "Go on, then. Tell me how amazing I am."

"You're amazing," Dad said, without missing a beat, and there was a weirdly sincere undertone that wiped the smirk right off Hilary's face, made her straighten up in her chair. "I mean that, kiddo. I know it hasn't been easy since Mom-" He paused, took a breath. "Since Mom died, and since Jeff left. Being stuck here isn't exactly every kid's dream, I know. But you're making the most of it, and every now and then I'll look at you and see this confident grown woman staring me down, and it kind of scares the hell out of me."

Hilary swallowed past a lump in her throat. "Dad-"

He glanced toward the window, to the plumes of smoke and the faint orange glow that was in the wrong direction to be the setting sun. "There's a lot of scary stuff happening right now, kiddo, and I just want you to know that I'm going to do everything I can to keep you safe."

Clearing her throat, Hilary glanced down at the tabletop, saw the scrawling doodles she and Jeff had carved there the first time he'd come to Tiptree to visit. Most of hers were stars. She traced them with one finger, thought about how fucked up growing up really was when you came right down to it, because when did she stop feeling protected by Dad and start feeling protective of him?

"And I'll do everything I can to keep you safe," she said, in a shaky voice, and glanced up to make sure he wasn't going to make fun of her solemnity. He looked a little stricken for a second, and she thought that maybe growing up was pretty fucked up for all parties involved.

Then the moment passed, and he smiled, patting her hand, and she felt good, surrounded by home and amped up on new excitement and listening to the running water that spoke of change. She could think about what came next without that old terror running through her. Life would go on. They'd be okay.

The door's chime rang, and with a sheepish grin, Dad patted her hand again and went to answer. Julie and the others were at the door, and Hilary sighed at the way they all shot a conspicuous look in her direction. This was clearly an Adults Only meeting about Adult Stuff of the greatest importance.

Then Hilary realized they were probably strategizing, talking about their odds of survival, contingency plans, that sort of thing. Maybe she didn't want to hear it after all.

She drifted back into the kitchen, stared down at the half-loaf of bread left on the counter. She didn't really feel like eating – neither she nor Dad had done more than poke at their bowls of stew. All the adrenaline was really screwing with her system, lately. She felt like running ten miles and sleeping for two days, all at the same time. She felt like-

A scream ripped through the evening air, something horrible and distant and unreal, rage and wordless suffering all at once. Hilary jerked, then dashed back to the living room in time to see terror wash over Dad's face, and they both headed for the window.

Someone was walking toward the house at a brisk pace, and it took Hilary a moment to recognize the other asari, Neiara.

"I thought they weren't due back until tomorrow," Julie murmured.

Hilary darted back to pound on the bathroom door, her skin crawling with the echoes of that horrible scream. The water was still running – Aeian mustn't have heard anything. "Aeian? Neiara's here."

The water stopped, and Hilary glanced over to see Dad backing away from the window, his brow furrowed. "Something's wrong. I don't like this."

The bathroom door opened, and Hilary was so ramped up on adrenaline that it took her a few seconds to notice that Aeian was only wearing a towel. "What's happening?"

"Neiara's here," Hilary said again, trying to sound calm, but she could hear her heartbeat in her ears. "I don't-"

The front door sparked and crashed open, the sound of exploding panels doing little to drown out another horrifying, ululating scream.

Hilary fell back a step, crashing into Aeian, and then shouts were rising up from the living room, and Neiara stepped in, but she didn't look right, she didn't look right, she was glowing and there was something about her eyes, black and fathomless, and she turned to look at Hilary and screamed again-

One of the farmers, a man named Lin who'd given Hilary rides to school whenever Dad wasn't around, took a step toward Neiara – he couldn't see her eyes, he couldn't see her eyes – and she turned, touched a hand gently to his forehead. He gave a horrible scream, then crumpled to the ground like a puppet with cut strings. His eyes were wide open. There was blood running from his nose.

Julie stepped in front of the others – what the hell was she doing, she was just a damn farmer, what the hell did she think she was doing – and Neiara just seemed to jerk forward, not even really walking, the horrible glow cascading around her. She touched Julie, and this time it wasn't so sudden, this time her skin melted and dripped off her bones. Julie screamed, and Neiara screamed with her, and Hilary couldn't tell if the screaming was out there somewhere or just in her head, screaming, screaming.

Things were pouring through the door, things that looked like lurching, shambling gray people, things with glowing blue tracers across their gaunt bodies, moaning, reaching, grasping anyone who got too close, and all the while Neiara jerked from person to person, screaming, screaming-

Something landed on Hilary's shoulder and her whole body seemed to snap, and she felt bile rising in her throat and all she wanted to do was run, all she wanted to do was go, go-

It was Aeian, Aeian screaming in her ear, Aeian's hand gripping her shoulder so hard it sent shocks of pain through her, and then it was Aeian dragging her back, dragging her away from the dead and the screaming, and Hilary saw one face that almost made sense in the middle of the dying, Dad's face, one glance, and then she and Aeian were crashing through the back door and the night air was cold and shocking and the screamers were still screaming and the dead were still dying and they were running, running.


	3. Night Winds: 2: Beginnings

**Night Winds: 2. Beginnings**

Part of Hilary went away for a while. It was quieter there, where everything was footfalls on grass, was scrambling over sharp rocks and gripping trees for purchase, was following the blue-and-white shadow ahead of her. There was nothing else.

They stopped running.

Part of Hilary came back.

She was on the ground, arms wrapped around her knees, and someone was sobbing quietly but it wasn't her, and she rolled onto her back, staring up at the canopy of trees overhead. They were in the hills behind the farm, in the thick, uncharted forests nobody had bothered cutting down yet. Young colonies had all the time in the world, or so the saying went. Pristine, untouched.

Aeian was crying.

Hilary sat up, then stared at her own torn and bloodied hands like they belonged to someone else. She brushed them against her shirt, leaving smears of blood, then staggered to her feet. Aeian was sitting on a log, still wearing only the towel, making no effort to brush away the tears streaming down her face.

Hilary crouched down next to her, tried to stop Aeian's tears, but only succeeded in smearing blood on her face. The touch seemed to snap Aeian back to herself, though, because she looked up, met Hilary's eyes with a dawning horror, grabbed her arms. "Are you hurt?"

Hilary looked at her hands. There was blood on them. She brushed them on her shirt again. "I don't think so. Just cut my hands on the rocks." She was pretty sure there had been rocks.

"Okay," Aeian said, and seemed to realize she was still gripping Hilary's arms. She let them go, and Hilary took a step back. "Okay. Something's wrong, something's- I didn't know they could do that. Not to asari."

"The Reapers?" Hilary asked, because she was pretty sure only the Reapers could produce that kind of dread in someone's voice.

"Yeah. They change you, make you one of them. They-" Aeian's voice broke, and she started to cry again, her tears painting weird pink trails in the smudges of blood Hilary's hands had left on her face. "Oh, Goddess. Neiara."

It felt a bit like Hilary was looking at the world through some sort of ultra-focused filter. Everything was sharp. Everything made sense. "They're all dead," she said, and wondered why she wasn't crying, wasn't screaming.

Aeian sucked in a breath, expelled it, and when she spoke, her voice was brusque, professional. "Probably. I'm sorry. We can't stay here long. Those husks are slow, but they're good at tracking."

"Okay," said Hilary.

They ran.

The nights on this part of the continent were cold, but Hilary didn't notice all that much. They stopped, once, so Aeian could fashion a sort of kimono out of her towel. They stopped again so Hilary could sink to the ground and sob, clawing at the dirt, until Aeian picked her up and bodily shoved her back into a run. They stopped again when they heard something behind them in the undergrowth, and then they ran faster.

"Okay," Aeian said, eventually. "Okay. We'll stop here."

Hilary curled up on the ground and fell instantly into a dark, dreamless, silent sleep.

* * *

Aeian shook her awake some time later, just as the sun was starting to rise. Hilary felt hollowed-out, empty, and the screaming was still echoing in the void where the rest of her used to be. Her hands hurt, and moving them cracked the fresh scabs so that they started to bleed again. She'd torn part of her shirt against a tree branch, so it didn't take long to rip a few new strips to bandage her hands.

When she'd finished, she looked up. Aeian was watching her, and there was no sign of the tears she'd seen last night.

_So this is an asari commando_, Hilary thought, and felt cold and numb.

"Hilary, are you with me now?" Even Aeian's voice was curt, business-like.

"I'm not gonna freak out again, if that's what you're asking." Hilary rubbed at her hands, watched blood spot through the filthy cloth. "Some of them might still be alive," she added, because someone had to say it.

"Not likely."

"You don't know that. We should go back."

"Negative. I have no weapons. I have no armor. And you-" Aeian cut herself off. "We're not equipped for a fight. When Neaira's shuttle doesn't report back in, they'll send someone to investigate. I'm trying to circle us back to the landing zone without getting too close. We'll be able to see when reinforcements arrive, and we'll leave with them. Until then, our only duty is to survive long enough to report in with what we've seen."

"What we've seen?" Hilary tried righteous anger on for size, found she liked it. It felt good. "What we've seen is people in trouble, Aeian. You're a biotic. Please, we have to try." And that felt more like terror, like desperation, like sorrow, because she knew they wouldn't, they couldn't. She bent double, breathing hard, and after a moment Aeian's hand was on her back, rubbing small circles.

They stayed like that for a long while. Shivers ran up and down Hilary's spine, but she wasn't crying, and her breathing was gradually coming back under control. "I- I almost wish you'd left me with them. I'll just slow you down."

The comforting touch on her back stilled. "Hilary, I try not to make a habit of leaving civilians behind. We're alive. The others will come. They'll help. We'll be safe."

Hilary glanced up, met the bright blue eyes, and almost believed what she saw there to be hope. "All right," she said.

Something made a crackling snap in the underbrush, and she'd thought she'd used up all her adrenaline in the past day, but there it was again, shifting everything into sharper focus, too-bright around the edges. Aeian's biotics flared, and then one of her arms came up and slammed into Hilary's chest, sending her tumbling back just as four husks charged into the clearing.

Hilary yelled and scrambled back, but the husks were ignoring her, swarming on Aeian, grabbing, tearing, and then Aeian's hands jerked in a pattern that was anything but subtle.

The husks _shredded_.

Hilary could feel the snap of the biotic energy in the air, cold and sharp and chill fingers dragging down her spine, and then she was pushing herself back, stumbling to her feet, trying to get out of the way as Aeian tore into another husk, her face calm, emotionless, her hands moving, glowing, destroying. Hilary thought, _no_, she thought, _no,_ this _is an asari commando_, and then her stuttering mind caught up with the rest of her and she saw another husk coming up from behind, digging fingers into Aeian's shoulder.

The branch felt weird in her hands, like it was too heavy and too light all at once, and she thought briefly, dispassionately, that it should probably be hurting, the way her palms were all gashed up, and then she was moving forward, swinging back, swinging forward, _connecting_. The husk slumped away from Aeian, and the force of the blow was still singing up and down Hilary's wrists while she rounded, seeking another target, finding only Aeian's wide eyes.

They stared at each other. Hilary dropped the branch, looked down at her bloodied hands. "Um," she said. "That really hurt."

Aeian made a little choking sound that escalated to an undignified snort, then a full-out laugh. "You scared me half to death. I was not exactly expecting… that. I thought the husks were launching an arboreal assault."

Hilary felt the corner of her mouth twitching. "That's all we need," she said, weakly, and then they were both laughing, high and nervous and relieved all at once. Hope, Hilary figured, was what you made of it.

* * *

Time passed.

They ran, rested, ran, found water and drank, didn't talk about the hollow aches in their stomachs, the hollower aches in their minds. Aeian sat with her back to an old tree, stared up at the stars. "They're not coming back for us," she said.

Hilary, halfway through rebandaging her hands, paused. "What do you mean?"

"I mean they probably think we're dead, that our position is overrun."

Hilary snorted. "They're at least half-right."

Aeian said nothing, scrubbed one hand against her scuffed and dirty towel, looked up once more, and sighed. "You were right. We have to go back. My radio's there. I can call for help."

A terrible emptiness beckoned, that feeling of staring off the edge of a cliff again, and Hilary's breath caught, and then she was speaking without thinking. "I- I don't want to, Aeian. I don't want to anymore. I don't want to go back there." She shivered, rubbed her arms, stared at her hands. "I don't want to know. This way, I don't have to."

"I understand," Aeian said, and stood. "But we're going now."

They reached the farmhouse just as a faint dawn was starting to flicker at the horizon. One moon, the funny, lopsided one that had a designation instead of a name, hung low in the sky, and reflected light picked out its deepest craters and chasms. Hilary watched it, tried to remember the names of the peaks and valleys. She thought about how Dad knew them all – or at least made up the ones he didn't know, just so he'd have stories to tell her.

Their house hadn't burned to the ground, no windows had been shattered, no bodies littered the ground around it, but in the too-early-morning light there was an appropriately nightmarish feel to the place, something not-quite-right. Shivering, she rubbed at her arms again, glancing over to Aeian. It hadn't taken her long to figure out that there'd been something between Aeian and Neiara, and now there was a strange look on Aeian's face, halfway between hope and terror. Hilary knew, without a doubt, that Neiara was gone, that there was nothing left of her in the screaming, the tearing, the killing. She also knew that Aeian didn't really believe it, the same way Hilary didn't really believe – couldn't really believe – her father was probably dead.

After a moment's pause, Aeian straightened her towel – the primness of the action was nearly enough to send Hilary into another fit of helpless giggles – and took a deep breath. "Okay," she said. "You stay here. I'll slip inside, activate the radio, come back out. Shouldn't be too-"

"I want to come with you." And a voice in Hilary's head was screaming at her that no, she really, really didn't want to, that letting a professional handle it was by far the best course of action. Except that Aeian still had that weird, wistful look, like maybe she was hatching some insane plan to rescue Neiara. Except that Aeian was starting to seem like maybe she was perfectly fine with dying in the attempt. Except that Hilary wasn't sure she could promise to stay in one place anyway, not when she was so close to where Dad- "I mean it, Aeian. I'm coming."

Aeian exhaled, rubbed a hand over her face, smearing it with dirt. "Just stay back, okay? And if things get bad, don't waste time flinging foliage around. Run."

As they took their first tentative step out of the forest, into the open, Hilary figured she wouldn't have any trouble following that particular instruction.

She wasn't sure what she'd been expecting – maybe some hub of husk activity, Reaper forces murmuring in every corner, but hell, it wasn't like this was a huge settlement. If everyone was dead, there'd be no reason to keep troops around. For all that they could pull off the whole eldritch horror thing, she was pretty sure the Reapers wouldn't be particularly good at the sort of insane organic reasoning that made sneaking back into an enemy stronghold seem like a _good_ idea. And they had certainly seemed to stop sending scouting parties after the one in the forest clearing, which was another mark in favor of their having planted an I-win flag and gone on to more important things.

So if everything was supposed to be so quiet, what the hell was that moaning?

Hilary shuddered, trying not to hear familiar voices in it, but as they snuck closer, she realized there were words among the mumbles, whispers, sounds that were distinctly human. She glanced over to Aeian, whose brow was furrowed in thought. This was unexpected, she knew, and tried to extinguish the brief, quavering flicker of hope that jumped to life in her chest.

Then, while Aeian glanced through the still-ajar back door, Hilary risked a quick peek through a window, and the flicker turned to a flare.

There were… fields of some kind, flickering barriers walling off rooms, and from her vantage point, she could only see the bathroom and Dad's bedroom, but there were shadowy figures inside. Prisoners.

She stumbled back a step, heart pounding, breathing hard. Prisoners. The rational part of her mind asked her if she really thought the Reapers bothered taking prisoners, but the rest of her was whispering, _Prisoners can be rescued_.

Aeian shook her head. "I don't like this," she mouthed. "I don't want you in there."

Hilary was too tired to force a wheedling expression, to remember how to be persuasive. She just stared at Aeian, blankly, until Aeian sighed, activated a biotic barrier that glimmered around her, and padded cautiously into the house. Hilary followed.

It felt weird inside, wrong. She remembered when Mara at school had talked about her home being broken into by thieves, how it hadn't been right afterwards, how it hadn't been safe. This was a bit like that, she figured, only now her bone-deep exhaustion was starting to sink in, and the instinct to flee was warring with the fact that all she wanted to do was crawl into her bed and pull the covers up to her head and sleep for a week.

Her bedroom was on their left as they stepped through the door. She turned her head and glanced through the barrier.

Dad was sitting on her bed, staring back at her.

She wanted to yell, wanted to shout, wanted to make noise, but all she could do was move her lips, choke back a sob. His thinning hair was sticking up in tufts, and his eyes were hollow, and he wouldn't quite meet her eyes, staring at the wall somewhere over her shoulder. Her lips moved again. Sound came out. "Dad?"

Aeian's hand was on her shoulder, cautioning, and Hilary could feel the flicker of biotic energy, but she didn't care, because Dad blinked slowly, focused on her, and then his face was flickering into a smile, weak and confused and relieved. "Hilary?" His voice cracked. "Oh, God. Hilary?"

Hilary touched the barrier, which flared briefly under contact with her fingertips, then stepped back with a frown. "Hang on, Dad. We'll get you out."

Dad's brow was furrowed, as though he was trying to remember something that had happened a long, long time ago. "The others," he said. "What about the others? I think there was some sort of release mechanism. I think the Reapers are coming back for us."

Hilary nodded, turned. Aeian stood in her path, mouth set. "We can't risk it," she said. "They'll be okay. We just need to call for help."

And already Hilary could feel her tense muscles relaxing, could feel herself shifting back into the blissful ignorance of little-kid mode, where other people made the decisions, where other people told her what to do and she was safe, she was always safe. Except that her hands, at her sides, kept coiling into fists, and a rage was building somewhere inside her, in the part of her mind that knew she'd leave home someday, the part that knew she'd make it on her own, the part that stood at the edge of a sheer drop and told her to jump.

"No," she said. "No, this is my father. We don't leave him behind. We don't leave anyone behind. If it were Neiara in these cages, would you be able to just turn away?"

Aeian's biotics flared, briefly, and the lapse in control was answer enough. Hilary turned away, walked down the corridor to the kitchen, offering nervous waves at the dazed, staring people slumped in their makeshift prison cells. When Aeian's hand came down on her shoulder again, Hilary twisted away from the touch, but Aeian was pointing to a hub of machinery that definitely didn't belong next to the kitchen table.

"That looks like a power source to me," she said. "We should-"

She froze, staring over Hilary's shoulder, wide-eyed. Hilary turned, followed her gaze out the window.

Neiara was standing just outside the window.

Even as Aeian dragged her down to her knees, out of the window's line of sight, Hilary was playing back that brief glimpse again and again in her mind. Neiara looked different, wrong, strange light glowing around her, and there was an oppressive feeling of heaviness to the air around her – and now Aeian was rubbing at her temples, eyes closed, murmuring to herself – and there were more of those husks standing around her, _things_ that looked like turians, and bigger, monstrous creatures that Hilary had only ever imagined in her most fevered nightmares.

"We can't fight them," Aeian whispered. "I don't think they saw us. We have to get out of here now. There's no time."

"We're not leaving alone," Hilary said, simply.

Closing her eyes for a long moment, Aeian exhaled again, looking more tired than Hilary had ever seen her. "Okay. You're right. We have to try. There's some data I should recover while I'm here, too." She moved closer to the machinery running the barriers, crouched down next to it. For a moment, Hilary was reminded of the time only days ago – how could it have only been days ago? – when she'd watched Aeian repair her ship. Now, as then, Aeian's hands moved in small, cautious gestures, tugging components this way and that. "Goddess protect us," she whispered. With a brief flare of light, the barriers faded.

Hilary scrambled to her feet, barely remembering to keep low and out of sight of the window, and ran back down the corridor, nearly careening into the wall in her rush to get back to her room, back to Dad-

She turned the corner, grinned at him, trying to scrub away the tears running down her face. He was staring at the place where the barrier used to be.

Her smile faded. He was still staring. "Dad?"

He looked at her, met her eyes. For a moment, she fooled herself into thinking there was something there. For a moment, she fooled herself into seeing the weeks and months and years to come, the long, slow rebuilding, the new silences, the new things they never talked about. For a moment, she fooled herself into hoping.

Then he opened his mouth and screamed.

The others, mere shadows at the corners of her eyes, screamed along with him, and then hands were grasping at her, and she found Aeian's fingers locked in hers, the only real thing, the only true thing, no future there but the running, and they ran again, they ran and they were outside and something was following them, something huge and monstrous and nightmarish that shook the ground when it walked.

Aeian turned to face it, shouting something, and for a moment, in a trick of the dawn light, Hilary thought her eyes had gone dark, and then she sent a wave of biotic energy crashing towards the monstrosity. It stumbled, then batted her aside like a rag doll, charged at Hilary.

She didn't have time to think, to run, before a huge, massive claw crashed into her, and she heard a crunch of bone, felt a shifting inside that wasn't right, it wasn't right, and then she was landing, curling into herself as the pain hit, and wasn't adrenaline supposed to take care of this sort of thing, wasn't she supposed to be numb to pain by now, and there was an explosion somewhere nearby and then Aeian was dragging her to her feet, just dragging her when her leg gave out, bending the wrong way, and that wasn't right, why the hell wasn't she unconscious, why the hell couldn't she just fade away.

She faded.

She opened her eyes. She was on the floor of a barn. Aeian was crouched over her, breathing hard, her face and body streaked with blood that was shockingly red - _human blood_ - and she was rocking back and forth slightly. She had something in her hand, a little data chit. She was talking in a low, hoarse voice. She wasn't a commando or a friend or a pilot. She was dark and broken and wrong. She was wrong.

"I'm sorry," she was whispering. "I'm sorry. Just stay quiet. Just please stay quiet. They're coming. They're coming. I have to get this data out of here. This will all be worth it. I have to survive, do you understand? I have to survive. This has to mean something."

Hilary turned her head, feeling stupid and sluggish and slow. Something about her leg was wrong, she knew that, so she didn't look at it. Something about her head was wrong, she knew that, so she didn't think too hard. Her pulse was pounding in her ears, quick and deep, and she knew she'd drown in the rhythm of it before long.

Aeian was still muttering to herself. "I had to. I had to. I had to do it. They would have killed you. They would have taken the data. I had to go back for the data. I had no choice. They can't have died for nothing. This has to mean something."

The words stopped making sense for a little while, and that was because something else was clawing at the door to her mind, something cold and sharp and angry, and then the pain broke through, really broke through, and she was sobbing, reaching for her shattered leg, falling back with the new blood on her hands, and Aeian was fumbling, reaching for her, whispering, "Goddess, no, stop, stay quiet, stay quiet, they're coming, they'll find us, I can't die here, I can't die here. It has to mean something. It has to mean something."

Someone screamed, outside, and someone answered the calling, each to each, and Hilary wanted to join them, wanted to scream and scream and let someone else lead her through the screaming, but there was a hand over her mouth, and Aeian was shaking, crying silently, her face a mask of blood, so much blood, and then her eyes went hard and cold and a faint glow was dancing around her, a faint energy crackling, and then Hilary felt a new touch at her throat.

_A long time ago – must've been almost ten years – she'd been sitting at the crest of a tall hill overlooking the farming settlement, her new home. Jeff was beside her, sprawled on the grass, pretending to be asleep, sneaking little longing glances up at the sky when he thought she wasn't looking. It was his first leave since the end of his training with the Alliance, and he'd opted to spend it helping her and Dad move. It wasn't until way later that Hilary had picked up the subtext, the uncomfortable feeling of obligation, the still-open wounds between Dad and Jeff about how things had gone after Mom's death, the hawkish, brittle defensiveness that was always under the surface with him, but for now, she was just happy to have her big brother around._

_She picked a few of the weird little red flowers that cropped up everywhere in the spring, sprinkled them on Jeff's face until he sneezed and laughed, swatting her hand away. "Come on, kid, you're killing me here. I'm a grizzled Alliance pilot now. Show some respect."_

_She thought about that for a bit, then poked his stubbled chin. "Old man."_

_That caught him off guard, because he just stared at her for a moment, and then he burst out laughing, and after a while she thought maybe he wasn't just laughing at her, he was laughing at everything, so she started laughing, too, flopped down next to him. After a few moments, he broke off into a wheeze, grinning at the sky. "Shit. If I crack a rib here, I'm blaming you."_

_"Dad'll take my side. I'm cuter."_

_He snorted. "Right. I'll have you know that I'm adorable."_

_"Uh-huh. That explains all your girlfriends."_

_"Jeez, straight to the heart. Sarcasm is a seriously disturbing thing in a kid your age, you know that?" He propped himself up on one elbow. "So what do you think of Tiptree? Better than the station?"_

_Hilary sat up, then clambered to her feet, stared out at the view of the settlement. The sun was high in the sky, glinting off the buildings below, and the woods were dark and mysterious to her left, and somewhere down there she heard the shrieks of other kids playing. The grass was scratchy and the dirt below was warm under her bare feet. The air had a taste to it, sort of sweet and soft, and she knew Dad would be cooking something, and they'd all go home and eat it together, sitting around a bright, warm table while the night-things outside whispered their songs in the dark._

_"Yeah," she said. "It's home."_

Aeian's eyes were blue, so blue, and her touch was almost gentle, in the end.

Hilary closed her eyes, thought again of that chasm, of standing at the edge of a sheer drop, of looking down and down and down, of feeling that urge to run, to fall, to fly.

She soared.


	4. Interlude: Sympathy for the Devil

**Interlude: Sympathy for the Devil**

"Good morning, Councilor. Earth-equivalent date: August 25, 2185. Reminder: today is Sam Li's two-year wedding anniversary. Error: receipt of message unconfirmed due to Arcturus Station communications blackout. Reminder: today is Michaelle Smith's fifty-seventh birthday. Error: receipt of message unconfirmed due to Arcturus Station communications blackout."

Councilor Donnel Udina stared at the ceiling and, after a time, he managed to summon Sam's face to mind, the ridiculous grin that was full of a young person's idealism and cheerful disdain for the vagaries of politics. Michaelle was much easier to recall, her laugh equal parts mocking and teasing as she tore up the debate floor with a whirlwind of hard facts, playing devil's advocate and winning, just to show them all how it was done.

He remembered the names.

He thought about them, and then he stopped thinking about them. He sat up. No need to make the bed, since he'd just been lying on top of the blankets. No sleep meant no dreams to tangle sheets. No dreams.

Tonight the dead would sleep easy.

The Citadel itself was dreaming, drifting, and he faded among the crowds, separate and anxious and solid amid the sea of sleepers. There was no war here but the one that tumbled and snarled and spat inside his mind, gnarling his hands into helpless spasms of activity, scrubbing them together again and again, washing them clean.

_"You're doing the right thing."_

_"No. I'm doing the only thing I can."_

He thought about burning worlds, about the walls that rose around them, about the horrifying placidity, cold comfort. He thought about the art and culture and genius and savagery and wonder of an entire planet being stripped bare. He thought about time, about minutes and seconds and centuries and millennia lost, torn away, forgotten.

He stepped into his office, sat at his desk, adjusted the papers, stood up, sat down again. A bloodless coup. He looked at the beads of red where his fingernails had dug into his palms. Bloodless.

He was still shaking by the time the call came.

"Change of plans," said Leng, and Donnel felt his heart sink still lower, had to grip the edge of his desk for balance.

He kept his voice tight. Professional. "The only reason I contacted you is because your Illusive Man agreed to do this my way, or not at all. Do you have any idea what a delicate situation this is?"

"Oh, some." Leng's voice was airy, deliberately provocative, but he was small-time compared to the political shit-stirrers Donnel dealt with on a daily basis. He took a deep, calming breath. Then Leng said: "The salarian councilor knows."

A thousand little hints, mistakes, errors in judgment crashed down around Donnel in that instant. What had he done? When had he given himself away? No matter. What was done was done. He swallowed, hating himself for reacting, for prompting that smug little grin on Leng's face. "What do you propose?"

"Councilor Valern will have to be eliminated."

Donnel jumped to his feet, slammed his hands on the table, and a voice inside him whispered that he'd seen this coming, he'd seen this coming. He shouted to drown it out. "_Damn_ it, this is not turning into an assassination! We slip in quietly, we arrest the Council, we force them to grant me the necessary emergency measures to get some help back to Earth, we cut through this bullshit red tape. Nobody dies. Do you understand? They'll crucify me. Humanity will never get the support it needs. I thought you of all people would understand that! Earth is burning-"

"Which is why it's so necessary," Leng said, smoothly. "Don't mistake my intentions, Councilor. This call is a courtesy, nothing more. The wheels are already in motion."

The vidscreen went dark. Donnel fell back into his chair, shaking. He'd told himself Cerberus would still have humanity's interests at heart, somewhere deep in their core. He'd told himself the Council just needed his boot up their asses to stop dithering and send their forces where they were needed most.

He'd told himself that Shepard had managed to play the Illusive Man for a fool and she'd come out of it intact.

_"You're doing the right thing."_

_"No. I'm doing the only thing I can."_

He sucked in a deep breath. The wheels were in motion, but he had wheels within wheels. The new Spectre, Williams, had a loyalty to the Alliance first and foremost, and there was no love lost between her and Cerberus. He'd stalled her, kept her aboard the Citadel, offered her the promotion as a lure, just as he'd done with Bailey. Oh, she hated him, he was certain, but she loved Earth more. She understood the true threat, unlike the blinkered politicians building wall after wall against the truth. A grudging ally was far better than none at all.

He didn't even jump when his office shuddered and shook around him with the force of some distant explosion. Klaxons and sirens wailed. He waited. After a time, a turian C-Sec officer, one of Bailey's newer recruits, came stumbling into his office, breathing hard. "Cerberus is attacking!"

"What's the status of the rest of the Council?"

He straightened, snapping to some approximation of attention. "Councilors Tevos and Sparatus were in their offices. They're currently in lockdown and under armed guard. Councilor Valern is still unaccounted for."

_Dead_, Donnel translated mentally, and then thought, a little wildly, _I think I know the feeling_.

"All right," he said. "Listen to me carefully. There has to be at least one mole here on the Citadel – how else could Cerberus bypass our defenses so easily?" The boy looked shaken at this, a little wobbly on his feet, so Donnel sharpened his tone. "Listen to me. There is a Spectre at Huerta Memorial Hospital, Ashley Williams. She can be trusted. Get her here now."

The officer ran, leaving Donnel alone for a moment, and he was thinking about walls crumbling, sleepers waking, planets burning.

He pulled a pistol from his desk, turned it over and over in his hands, felt the weight of the ugly thing in his hand, the uglier thing in his head. He adjusted his tunic to cover the bulge of the weapon, stepped out into the corridor with the weight of it at his side._ Sam Li. Michaelle Smith. Arcturus Station. Earth._

Someone would have to remember the names.


	5. Steel and Shadows: 1: Past Continuous

**Steel and Shadows: 1. Past Continuous**

The mood during the shuttle ride was quiet, anticipatory, practically dripping with suspense. Solana Vakarian stretched out so her legs were propped up against the opposite bench, paused for dramatic effect, then yawned hugely. The grizzled officer sitting across from her – Captain Hardass, she'd dubbed her – edged completely to one side of the bench, staring at her offending feet with a sort of dawning horror.

"I wish you'd take this more seriously," Hardass muttered, and shoved Solana's feet to the ground. Magnanimously, Solana opted not to pursue the issue, instead straightening in her seat. After all, she'd made it through just enough of basic training to remember how to sit properly, much as four years of slouching behind a desk at Hierarchy Intelligence had fought to break that habit.

"Captain, if I took this seriously, I would've hid under my desk the second I heard the words 'Vakarian, you're wanted at the front'. There would have been a lot of whimpering involved. Not much in the way of personal dignity." The shuttle jolted in some turbulence – they were coming down in a dust storm – and Solana waited until they leveled off before leaning back again. "This way, I can at least pretend to be impressive. Keeping up the family name, you know."

Hardass took on a thoughtful expression, visibly sizing her up, and Solana kicked herself mentally. Yes, by all means, do invite comparison! A distinguished ex-cop with endless friends in high places, a hotheaded but charismatic task force leader, and oh, right, that other Vakarian, the one bravely desk-jockeying her way to total invisibility, what was her name again?

In the space of a few seconds, Hardass had gone from staring to glaring, obviously expecting Solana to apologize for being less of a badass than anticipated. Hah. Solana drew her mandibles in tight, squinted her eyes, and shot an identical expression of disapproval right back at Hardass. Sure, it was petty, but it was also fun, and it kept her mind off just how much distance currently separated her from her safe, secure, wonderfully boring desk.

Hardass looked away first, cleared her throat, then flicked a datapad into Solana's lap. "I assume you got the ten-second debrief before leaving. We've picked up a little more information since then, but not much. Crashed ship we're headed to has been identified as a shuttle from the carrier Taelus, which reportedly went down with all hands four days ago. Two days before that, the captain reported picking up a lone survivor from a damaged shuttle."

Paging through the sparse data, Solana cast a quick glance up at Hardass. "I assume this is the guy who's asked me to pay him a visit?"

"Affirmative. He reportedly stole a shuttle from the Taelus and disappeared shortly before the attack. There's a theory in there from your division that suggests the possibility that he was indoctrinated, some sort of advance guard for the Reapers."

She had to laugh. "Now, that's what I like to hear. Not only am I being called out to the front, it's to visit a possibly indoctrinated madman who may be responsible for the deaths of hundreds." Solana blew out a breath, then paused, paged back. "Says here we don't have confirmation on his identity."

Hardass shrugged. "The surviving reports named his clan markings as generic ones, common to lots of little colonies out in the middle of nowhere. Figured he was just a refugee looking for a heavily-armed escort home. He refused to give his name, had no ID on record, and generally acted paranoid. He was unarmed, but he did physically assault a sergeant who tried to examine his belongings."

Solana was paging more quickly through the report, drawing on her training to absorb the relevant details without getting bogged down in the repetitive crap people threw in to meet pagecount quota. "Says here he just stuck out his leg to trip the sergeant and picked up his bag when it was dropped. That hardly makes him a menace to society. And this also mentions that the order then went out to have him sedated and questioned."

Hardass shifted a little uncomfortably. "It's wartime, Vakarian, and our own people can be turned against us. You have someone sneaking aboard your ship and acting strangely, you start getting ideas."

"Fine, yes, granted, but it could explain why he ran. Can't say I'd have stuck around to enjoy the show." Solana finished the report and tossed it back to Hardass. "Timing with the Reaper attack could just as easily be coincidence. Spirits know we're losing enough ships as it is. If you pick a ship at random, it's pretty much bound to explode within the week. I'm surprised there's not a report here calculating the statistical probability of just such an outcome."

"There are perhaps some oversights in the report," Hardass said, and beneath her sullen tone Solana thought she'd caught a brief glimpse of startled respect. _Damn right. Wasn't twenty-third in my class at the intelligence academy for nothing._ "Regardless, we've set up a perimeter of snipers around the shuttle. No clear shot as of yet, but they'll be ready."

"So if it turns out this guy really is indoctrinated, he'll get gunned down immediately after he kills me," Solana said. "Thanks. That's real comforting."

"Your quick but incredibly painful death will be avenged."

Solana snorted. "Ah, so you do have a sense of humor. I'd rather it wasn't at my expense, mind you, but I'll take what I can get."

The shuttle jolted violently, snarled in some particularly nasty air current. Solana felt her whole body clench in response, even as the shuttle's tremors began to die down. All of a sudden, the thought of a horrible, painful death at the hands of this mysterious thief didn't seem half as funny.

"So, uh, we're sure he really did ask for a Vakarian and not, say, a Valarian? They lived down the road from us when I was a kid. I think one of them delivers self-sealing stem bolts to the outer colonies. He might just really, really want some self-sealing stem bolts."

"We're pretty damn sure," Hardass said, without a glimmer of humor. "Spelled the name for us and everything. Claims he has 'intelligence vital to the fate of the Hierarchy' and will only deliver it to a Vakarian. Anyone else tries to enter the shuttle without his permission, he says he'll off himself and destroy the data. Thus dooming the Hierarchy, presumably."

"And we think he really does have something?"

Hardass shrugged. "It's hard to know, but he did read off the first five characters of a secure, coded message. Unless he's a deep-cover operative, he'd have to be exceptionally lucky to guess that information without the message in hand. Given the current state of affairs, it really doesn't seem worth the risk. Besides, you were relatively close by, and it wasn't exactly a strain on resources to send you out here."

"You're doing a lot of dancing around the word 'expendable', there."

"Active service members and intelligence agents share the closest of professional relations," Hardass recited, a little smugly, Solana thought. "Speaking of which-" She dug into her bag and came up with a Phaeston assault rifle. It took Solana a moment to realize it was an offer and not a threat.

"Oh! No, I'd rather not make an overt show of force." In the interest of maintaining an appearance of badassery, Solana neglected to mention the seventeen concealed blades intelligence operatives carried on their person at all times. "The reports say he was wounded in the crash. Pointing a rifle at him might make him tempted to return the favor. Kinetic barriers and armor are enough for me." To emphasize her point, she thumped her hand against the light armor she'd donned during her hasty departure. She could swear the motion kicked up a cloud of dust, and wondered vaguely how long the suit had been hanging in her closet.

Hardass rolled her eyes and, after a moment's thought, added the Phaeston to her own already-considerable arsenal. When she turned back to Solana, her eyes were narrowed in an expression that was obviously meant to be intimidating. "And you're sure you can't think of who this person is? He never contacted you?"

Solana couldn't back down from an opening like that; she snapped into a stiffer posture and drew on her best borrowed-from-the-vids super-spy tone of voice. "The information that has been released to you is complete and correct, Captain. Anything else falls into the realm of speculation."

"Understood," Hardass said, coldly. Solana grinned inwardly at the imperceptible shift in the balance of power aboard the shuttle. She'd always been crap at the paperwork side of this job, but when it came to people, she could manipulate with the best of them.

Five self-congratulatory minutes later, the shuttle dipped sharply into a dive and landed with a shudder that made her wonder whether all the competent pilots in the Hierarchy had been killed already. When the rumbling died down, she stood and stretched her limbs, ostensibly to work out the kinks of the shaky ride, but also to stall for time. Maybe if she stretched long enough, the guy in the shuttle would get bored and leave, or die of his injuries, or something, and she could go home. She'd seen the reports; she knew full well they were only two kilometers from the full-sized Reaper demolishing the resistance in Rocam City. That was way, way too close for comfort.

Hardass was already wearing her helmet, standing at the shuttle's airlock, and she was looking at Solana funny, which meant the whole stalling-for-time thing had probably gone on long enough. Right. Solana donned her own helmet and strode past Hardass, going for a cool-and-collected attitude. It lasted about the time it took her to take three steps out of the shuttle.

Two kilometers away was not far enough.

Even through the dust whipped up by the storm, her helmet's simple visual scanners were able to pick out an indescribably massive shadowy figure, a hazy blob of darkness that tapered away at the top. Occasional blasts of bright red light cut through the darkness, leaving glimmering after-images in her vision. What she'd taken for grit kicked up by the wind was mostly smoke from a dozen massive fires burning in the distance, casting the horizon with an ominous orange glow. And then there was the sound of the thing, a low trumpeting that echoed across the space between them, the blast sucked this way and that by the wind, distorted into a shrill cry here, lowered into a dull roar there.

"I've changed my mind," she said, and turned to face Hardass. "I think the whole hiding-under-my-desk-and-whimpering plan had some real merit, and I may have dismissed it too quickly."

Without a word, Hardass picked her up and turned her around so she was facing the monstrosity again. "Come on," she said. "Let's get this over with so we can get you out of here."

Solana couldn't really argue with that, so she ignored the whimpering at the back of her mind and stepped forward. Hardass had drawn her rifle and was marching forward to meet a group of soldiers, who were clearly terrified and wanted to get the hell out of there. Mentally paging through the less critical reports she'd read in the shuttle, Solana recalled that this platoon had been in the process of systematically withdrawing from the area when the shuttle had gone down nearby, stalling their retreat. Lucky them.

Their leader, a young lieutenant, practically exuded relief at having a superior officer on the scene._ Ah, to let someone else make all the decisions and do all the screwing-up for you._ Solana thought fondly of her own supervisor, working in a nice clean orbital office that the Reapers hadn't bothered hitting yet. Then she stopped thinking fondly of him and started hating him a little. Maybe more than a little.

After a few moments of standard military pleasantries, during which Solana mostly occupied herself by being terrified, Hardass beckoned her over, then pointed to a plume of smoke rising behind a nearby sand dune. "He's just down there, won't let anyone get closer. They've been trying to keep him talking, but he's fading in and out. Sounds like he's pretty badly wounded."

Solana winced. "I assume there's a medic somewhere in this outfit, and you're not just planning on shooting him the moment I get him outside?"

Hardass crossed her arms, cocking her head to the side. "You're really out to spoil our fun, aren't you?"

"You're not half as funny as you think are. I'll be in touch," Solana said, and picked her way across the sand before her better judgment could remind her that running away was a much better plan.

The distant roar of the Reaper was more and more chilling the further she got from the others, and even the smaller sounds grew louder, the little nervous catch in her breathing, the grit of blowing sand against her armor, the uncertain crunch of her footsteps. She shivered, fingered the hilt of the knife rigged on a snap-wire up her sleeve. It didn't seem like much comfort against... well, against _this_.

She reached the crest of the dune and paused, staring down at the shuttle. It had clearly come down hard, half-buried as it was, but it seemed to have fared pretty well, all things considered: she could see the flickering glow of the auto-repair systems even from this distance. More to the point, she was reasonably sure the cameras were working, which meant she was probably being watched.

She opened the little file in her head she'd dubbed 'everything's-gone-to-shit' and scrolled through her options for approaching the ship. Most of them seemed to end badly for everyone involved. She ran through the list again, sighed, and mentally crumpled it up, instead opening a comm link to the shuttle. _Oh, this is going to be fun._

"Dear sir or madam," she said, and took a skidding step down the dune. "It has come to my attention that you are in unlawful possession of Hierarchy property, to wit, one shuttle, comma, crashed."

The comm link crackled to life, and a soft, dazed voice came over the line. "The fuck?"

She flailed her arms, turning a stumble into a controlled slide down the steepest slope of the dune, then raised her voice again, dignity mostly intact. "Uh," she said, "I don't know if you've noticed, but there's a really big Reaper out here, maybe getting closer. You called, I'm here. Let me in or come outside, I don't care which. We need to leave." She'd managed to resume a regular walking pace at the base of the dune, and couldn't suppress a little triumphant flicker of a grin as she finally came up beside the shuttle's main hatch. So far, so good. _When in doubt, confuse everyone you can._

The comm link was open – her helmet was patching through heavy breathing other end that definitely wasn't hers – but no reply was forthcoming for several seconds. When he spoke again, his voice was stronger, more suspicious. "Wait. Who is this?"

"Solana Vakarian." She racked her brains for something suave to say, and could only come up with: "I don't usually make house calls."

Another baffled pause. "Garrus is married?"

"What? No. At least I don't think so. I'm his sister." And it just _figured_ that Garrus was wrapped up in all this somehow.

"Huh," he said, contemplatively.

On the horizon, the Reaper blasted something into atoms. Solana could swear the ground shook. "Look, I formally request-" Another blast. This time the ground really did shake. "Fuck it. Open the fucking hatch. Please."

She could practically hear the cogs turning in his head, could pinpoint the exact moment he realized he'd run out of options. A strained sigh echoed over the line. The hatch opened.

She'd already taken several quick, nervous steps into the shuttle by the time her brain caught up with her body. She froze.

The shuttle's interior was a mess. The faint smell of sweat and blood spoke to the fact that the air circulators had been offline for at least a few hours, and as she took an uncertain step back, her foot crunched on one of the ration bar wrappers littering the ground. The craft's sole occupant was huddled at the back of the cargo hold, sitting on the floor with his back propped up against the bulkhead. He was younger than she'd expected, a couple years her junior at least, but his clan markings were already faded and marred by a series of scuffs and scars. There was blood running down the side of his head, and he held his left arm at an angle that didn't look at all healthy.

He was also, incidentally, pointing a pistol at her.

She recognized it as an M-358 Talon, which would be more than enough to take down her shields and blast a sizeable hole in her armor at this range. Mentally opening a file on the weapon, she scrolled through it with a ridiculous, detached calm. Favored by Cerberus operatives, apparently. Either he'd stolen it... or the whole indoctrination theory was more likely than she'd feared.

The knife up her sleeve, not to mention the sixteen other blades concealed on her person, seemed woefully inadequate.

"Is-" Her voice cracked, and she cleared her throat before trying to speak again. "Is that really necessary?"

He blinked at her, then glanced down at his pistol as though he'd forgotten about it. He lowered it a fraction, then raised it again, a bit uncertainly. "Look, just... I may be a bit out of it, but I'm pretty sure I can hit you from here, double-vision or no. So just sit down for a second and let me think."

Solana sucked in a deep breath, then perched on the edge of the bench across from him. Her training, before she'd made the welcome transition into the more desk-bound part of the job, had addressed situations similar to this one. _Well, okay, maybe 'having a nice chat with a guy who may or may not be under the mind control of a race of ancient machine gods' wasn't explicitly written up in the manual._ After a moment's thought, she pulled off her helmet so she could at least look him in the eyes. To her surprise, he glanced away almost immediately.

Heartened by the small success, she struck up a tone that was as conversational as she could muster. "There's a pretty big Reaper out there. Why don't we finish this discussion far, far away from it?"

The pistol wavered again, and he craned his neck to look past her out the opened hatch. "Is it that close?"

As if on cue, the Reaper's wind-distorted roar whistled past. "Close enough." He'd flinched at the sound, and now he was starting to tremble, staring down at the pistol in his hands with wide eyes. _That's probably not good._ "Okay," she said, a bit desperately. "You wanted me here, and here I am. I think I deserve a bit of an explanation, at least. I'm Solana Vakarian. Who are you?"

"How do I know?"

"What?"

He shifted against the bulkhead behind him, straightening up a little, and waved the pistol in the air as he spoke, confirming her vague suspicion that he hadn't made it through enough of basic training to have proper trigger discipline and safety protocols drilled into his brain. "How do I know you are who you say you are?"

She stared at him. "I haven't shot you. Didn't even bring a gun with me. That's probably a good sign." She shifted her weight, not really sure if she was warming to her topic or just babbling out of nervousness. "I can't say I'd really thought about having to prove my identity. I mean, I kind of figured that if someone was asking for a Vakarian, they'd probably know what we all looked like. You, uh, you didn't really think this through, did you?" That got a choked laugh out of him, and she smiled cautiously in response.

"I worked with Garrus for a while," he said, and then the words were coming faster. "I have some sensitive information, and he's pretty much the only person in the galaxy I can trust right now. But I figured he was probably off being fucking heroic somewhere, so I thought maybe his family would be the next best thing." He gave a little shrug, then winced and half-curled around his injured arm. The pistol's barrel tracked down towards the ground.

"You don't have anyone else you could contact?"

He shook his head. "First time on Palaven. Hell of a day to visit."

The shuttle rattled with another not-so-distant blast from the Reaper. "Yeah," Solana said, and made a conscious effort to relax her hands from the tightly-clenched fists resting on her thighs. "Look, I'd love to play tour guide, hear all about this vital information of yours, but that'll be kind of hard to do if we've both been vaporized. Or," she added, "if you shoot me."

Again, he shot a confused look at his pistol, and after a moment's hesitation, he let it drop to the floor. Solana couldn't entirely conceal a sigh of relief. "Right," he said. "Sorry. I'm not-" He sighed, swiping at the blood running down the side of his head. "This hasn't been the greatest day of my life."

Solana gripped the edge of her seat as the ground shook again. "Join the club. Straight answer – who are you?"

He exhaled slowly, still not meeting her eyes, and she realized his hide had gone pale, seeming to draw color even from his scales. "My name is Lantar Sidonis. I worked with Garrus after Commander Shepard died. You know, on Omega." He paused, looked at her, obviously expecting some reaction. Solana opted for staring at him like she had no idea what he was talking about, which was easy enough, since she really did have no idea what he was talking about. She'd tried doing some prying the last time Garrus had come home, but after the tenth round of questions-and-pained-silences, she'd decided to back off. If he'd spent those two years on Omega, that explained a lot. She'd wondered about those new scars...

"Okay," she said, after the awkwardness of Lantar's insistent stare was getting to be a little much. "What's this data of yours and why are you so fired up to deliver it to a Vakarian?"

He shook his head, obviously puzzled at her non-reaction, then brought his good hand up again, stared blankly at the blood on his glove. "I... I was just trying to help out, you know? Be a good turian for once in my fucking life." But the words rang hollow, and it took her a moment to realize why: there was no real bitterness or anger in his voice. Despite the stale air in the shuttle, she couldn't suppress a shiver. In recent months, she'd learned very well what aching, bone-deep loss sounded like.

His words were fading, turning to murmurs half-drowned by the rumble of the wind and the Reaper outside. "I turned myself in at the Citadel, you know. I tried. Not their jurisdiction, they said. Not their problem. No resources. I helped where I could. I tried. I just wanted-" He seemed to run out of steam all at once, slumping back with a miserable sigh. "I don't know what I wanted."

The shuttle shook again, and for a moment Solana thought of the storms back home, the ones that rumbled on the horizon, the ones that cast dim, flickering light over all the faraway places. As a child, Garrus had always liked watching them, perching in the highest window he could reach until Mom noticed and drew him out of danger, gently scolding. Solana had always hidden in the darkest corner of her room, trying to will the rain and the wind and the loud, angry rumbling away. If the Spirits were real – and she was still pretty much undecided on that one – the Spirit of a storm drew only on the death and suffering it caused. There was no beauty there.

The Reaper's call was louder now, and she was shivering in earnest. _There is no beauty here,_ she thought, and stood up. Lantar watched her, but made no move for his pistol. "We have to go," she said. "Now."

He clenched his good hand into a fist, seemed to make a decision, and picked up one of the datapads lying next to him. "I have proof," he said, and tossed it to her. "I found proof that someone very important is indoctrinated."

She stared at him, then blew out her breath as she skimmed the first few lines of the file, thinking of storm clouds gathering. "Say that again."

Her sense of urgency seemed to be contagious; now his words were practically tripping over themselves. "I figured I could do some good back here – when I heard Palaven was burning, I just thought I should be there for it, you know? So I rented a shuttle and made it through the relay just in time to get hit by a Reaper. Glancing blow, systems damaged, got picked up by a passing cruiser a few hours later. I was doing some snooping around for, ah, potentially lucrative reasons." He had the grace to look embarrassed about it, at least. "And I found this note expressing concern about a series of suspicious orders that might've indicated indoctrination."

"This is from General Sarus's men," Solana said, startled. She had vague memories of a tall, jovial man with a booming voice and strikingly well-maintained clan markings. "This was meant to go out on all high-priority intelligence channels – why haven't I heard about this?"

"Didn't make it out," Lantar said. "Every one of his men was killed last week in an overwhelming attack by Reaper forces. Not necessarily unusual what with everything going on, but the man himself was conveniently absent, sending his orders from the base at Galatan Capital at the time. Medical reasons, they said, preventing him from returning to the front. Whoever dug up this message in the first place did some more digging – the communication blackout around the time this message was supposed to go out originated from Sarus's temporary command headquarters at Galatan."

"Wait." Solana held up her hand, skimmed through the message again. When she'd finished, she was a bit surprised to see Lantar obediently sitting silent, watching her. "Whoever tracked this down – why didn't they turn it in? They must've known at least for several days. All the cruisers are tied in to the intelligence channels – all they had to do was find a comm and send the message."

Lantar shrugged. "Could be indoctrinated. Might just be looking to sell the information to the highest bidder." There was no particular accusation in his voice, just a sort of vague understanding. _Spirits, Garrus, what kind of friends have you been making?_ "I copied the information, they tried to get it back, I ran. I just-" He shrugged, gave another weak laugh. "I wanted to do something about it, I just didn't want it all to be on me. I don't generally perform well under pressure. So I figured-"

"-you'd find a Vakarian," Solana finished.

"It seemed like the best option at the time," Lantar said, a bit defensively. "I didn't think I really had any other options. And then that Reaper shot me down and here I am."

Solana put a hand out to steady herself against the bulkhead. "We have to get out of here," she said.

"Well, yes, you've mentioned that several times," said Lantar, and slowly levered himself to his feet, blinking hard. "I didn't want to risk-"

"No," Solana said. "We really, really need to get out of here. My father-" She drew in a breath. "Sarus is an old friend of my father's. They're working together at Galatan."

"Oh," said Lantar, and swayed on his feet. "Fuck. I guess I'm lucky they didn't send for him instead of you."

Solana's stomach was churning. Her first instinct was to rail at Lantar for bringing this to her, for making it her decision, her responsibility. That was also her second, third, and fourth instinct. By the time a few seconds had passed, however, she was breathing more slowly, clenching and unclenching her fists. "Okay," she said. "Here's what we're going to do."

An ear-splittingly loud roar exploded through the shuttle, accompanied by a blinding surge of red light. She blinked. She was lying on the floor, her ears ringing, her heart pounding in her ears. Her first dazed thought was that Lantar must have jumped her, but when she rolled to her side, she saw him huddled around his bad arm, keening softly in pain.

The Reaper fired again, a hell of a lot closer than two kilometers away.

Even as the ground bucked beneath her, Solana opened her comm channel to Hardass, scrambling over to slam the shuttle's hatch shut, for all the protection it could afford. "What the hell's happening out there?"

Static.

She mentally opened the new file she'd labeled 'fuckfuckfuck' and scrolled through her options, spinning to take in as much of the shuttle as she could. The autorepair's glowing indicator light – all systems go – made the decision for her. She launched herself at Lantar, all but dragging him to his feet. "Can you fly this thing?"

"Apparently I can crash it," he mumbled, and tried to pull away from her. "Lemme lie down for a second. Just a second. My fucking head-"

She deposited him in the copilot's seat, then did it again when he started sagging to the ground. Something big exploded nearby – sounded like a fuel core going up – and the shuttle jerked with the force of the blast, sending Solana reeling into a collision with the pilot's chair, too slow for her kinetic barriers to recognize the threat and cushion the blow. Even through her armor, the pain in her ribs was excruciating, and she coughed, hitting the ground on hands and knees.

"Where are we going?" Lantar's voice was high and panicky, and she looked up to see that he'd apparently pulled himself together enough to be going through what looked like an incredibly expedited pre-flight check. "Oh fuck, they're all gone out there, we're the only ones left. No other signatures."

Solana staggered to her feet, using the pilot's chair to anchor herself. "Galatan," she said, and doubled over at the renewed pain in her ribs. "We have to-"

The shuttle's engines flared, and she fell into the pilot's seat, fumbling for the emergency safety straps and feeling ridiculous for it. Lantar was murmuring a litany of curses under his breath as the shuttle rose, and Solana pointedly ignored her new mental file labeled 'ways-we-can-die-in-the-next-five-seconds' in favor of casting about frantically for an appropriately profound and meaningful last thought. She thought about Mom on her deathbed, staring at her without recognition until even that benign confusion faded with the light in her eyes. She thought about Dad, beaming at her on her last day of basic training, the last moment he could still fool himself that his daughter would be a proper soldier. She thought about Garrus, cold and angry and distant and never there, not when it mattered most.

She thought about storms that built on the horizon, storms that passed overhead, storms that moved inexorably forward in the dying light of day, cold and uncaring.

She was still breathing.

"Oh, hey," Lantar said, weakly. "We're not dead. That's neat."

Solana moved her hand to the controls, traced a finger over the figures. The Reaper was ten kilometers behind them. Fifteen. Twenty.

"Something else must have distracted it," Lantar was saying, his voice almost salarian in pitch. "It tried shooting at us once, but I dodged it. Well, I was trying to use my left hand and I forgot how much it hurt, so I hit the wrong control and we banked and it missed. That's good, right? I mean, considering we're not dead and all." He paused, thoughtfully. "I feel like I'm rambling. Am I rambling?"

Everything seemed sharper, brighter. Solana found her voice. "Maybe a little."

"Oh," he said. He turned in his seat to look over at her, meeting her eyes for what seemed like the first time since she'd entered the shuttle. "Um. I'm guessing General Sarus won't just cheerfully admit to being indoctrinated, and if your father's involved, this could get tricky. My current track record notwithstanding, I think... I think I'd like to help if I can, if we're going to Galatan. So could you let me in on the plan?"

"The plan?" Solana stared at him for a long moment, then crossed her arms on the console in front of her, buried her head in them, and burst out laughing.


	6. Steel and Shadows: 2: Present Tense

**Steel and Shadows: 2. Present Tense**

The resistance camp at Galatan Capital was surprisingly well-appointed and Reaper-free. Solana wasn't entirely sure what she was expecting – more fire and death and Reapers, probably, and fewer graceful spires and precise infantry formations and _is that a food cart down there?_ The fizzing of the radio made them both nearly jump out of their scales, but it only heralded the voice of a bored-sounding air control officer directing them to a berth.

"Well," Lantar said, as they came in for a perfectly bland and boring landing. "This is weird as hell." Glancing over at him, Solana had to remind herself of her bruised ribs to keep from bursting out laughing. Without medigel on hand, they'd had to fashion a bandage for his head out of an old shirt, which made him look like he'd just escaped from a pile of particularly deadly laundry.

"I know what you mean," she said, when she'd successfully swallowed her giggles. "Shouldn't there be more people dying horribly... is not a sentence I ever thought I'd be saying. Right." She straightened up, glanced around for her belongings, realized she didn't really have any, and got to her feet. "Ready?"

Lantar looked around a bit helplessly at the mess, picked up a ration bar wrapper, stared at it, then let it drop again. "Uh. Sure. You're going out there first, right?"

"Your bravery is a tribute to the turian spirit."

"I've bravely got your back. Besides, you said you're with the intelligence service. That makes you a badass spy, right?"

Solana couldn't quite tamp down a grin. "Oh, on a good day I do some badass paperwork, collate some badass reports. Occasionally I go to the restaurant down the street and buy some badass Tupari Sports Drink, which I then drink. Badassfully."

"My hero," Lantar said, solemnly.

Solana took a deep breath, then opened the shuttle's hatch. A couple of young soldiers were already jogging up to meet them, and one offered her a confused, half-hearted salute as he skidded to a halt. "Ma'am. We received your recognition code and we, er, weren't aware that the intelligence service had any agents in the vicinity. Are you in need of assistance?"

"I think we're okay," Solana said.

Lantar cleared his throat. "Uh, hi, my head is bleeding quite a lot. And I think there are at least three bones in my arm that aren't where they're supposed to be. Just wanted to throw that out there."

Solana glanced back at him with an apologetic wince. "Oh, right. Sorry. Um, we'll probably need a medic, then."

When she turned back to face the soldiers, a third man was standing with them, tall and commanding. "Oh," she said, weakly. "Hi, Dad."

It had always been a bit awkward, seeing her father again after she'd moved out. The past few months in particular, since Mom had died, it seemed like he'd aged considerably every time she saw him, his face-plates a little more weathered, his gaze a little foggier, his back a little less straight. And every time they met, she knew that she, in turn, was a little more of a stranger to him.

Now she met his gaze, searching it for... for what? For signs that he'd become a traitor, that he was colluding with a puppet of the Reapers? That he was a puppet himself? All she'd ever seen in those eyes were her own successes and failures reflected back, her own sorrows and joys distilled, transformed.

He was wearing a faint smile, confused and relieved and a little frightened, and she smiled back. "We probably should've called first, huh?"

He brushed aside the implied apology, straightening his posture, clasping his hands behind his back. "I assume there's a fascinating story behind all this. Who's the one bleeding in the corner?"

Solana wondered if it might be more prudent to make up a cover-story, but that felt like admitting defeat, that felt like acknowledging the fact that the man in front of her might not be her father. She mentally closed the file marked 'reasons-this-is-a-terrible-idea' and straightened. "This is Lantar Sidonis, Dad. We-"

She cut herself off.

Her father's face just... went slack, mandibles flared, brow-plate raised, mouth wide. And then, like he'd donned a mask, the expression disappeared, leaving only a strange, cold fire in his eyes, and for the first time, Solana started to wonder, really started to wonder-

"Sidonis. Good to meet you. Do you need a doctor? I made sure there was a medic on call when we saw the state of your, ah, transportation."

Lantar cast a glance at Solana that was, frankly, terrified. He'd caught the look on her father's face as well. She steeled herself and nodded at him, trying to communicate the need for caution. "Go ahead, Lantar. I'll catch up with you later."

He looked like he was going to protest. She raised a browplate. He shut up and left with the medic.

Her father watched the exchange without comment, then rested a hand on her shoulder, his voice a little softer than usual. "I'm glad you're safe, Solana. It's been a hectic few days. I apologize if I'm not myself."

Solana barely managed to suppress the urge to jolt away from him. _Just a figure of speech, Sol, calm down._ "So I gather. It looks awfully calm around here, though. Wasn't expecting I'd be the one seeing action."

"Neither was I." His hand tightened briefly on her shoulder. "As soon as we got your clearance request, I was trying to open some old channels, see if I could get more intel on why exactly you were in the thick of things. Reapers, I presume?"

Ah. Now _this_ was starting to get into information that could get dangerous if he really was… compromised. But hey, her instructors had always told her that lying was easy. Don't venture too much information, and people will very considerately start lying to themselves to fill in the gaps. "It's an op, Dad. You know I can't talk about it," she said, and hated just how simple it was.

"All right," he said. "And you're working with this, ah, Sidonis, was it? Tell me, Sol, do you trust him?"

She knew she hadn't mistaken the earlier look of recognition on his face. Why the hell would he be pretending now that he didn't know Lantar's name? "I don't think he's a danger, Dad. I think he wants to do the right thing." And why the hell did _that_ get another flicker of surprise out of him? "I need him," she said. _And I need you to trust that I know what's best._

"Good enough for me," he said.

"And, uh, how's General Sarus?" she asked, and kicked herself for the wonderfully subtle way she'd raised the subject, there.

Her father just blinked at her, but she could imagine the cogs turning. "Better," he said. "His appetite's back, with a vengeance. He really seems to have taken to the new cook on base – strange fellow, but Sarus won't stop singing his praises. But Sol, I didn't think you remembered him. Something I should know about?"

"Nope," Solana said, cringing inwardly at her current streak of brilliant displays of subtlety. "Nothing at all."

He stared at her for a moment, then shrugged. "Good enough for me," he said, and extended an arm. After a moment's hesitation, she looped hers through his, and they stepped out of the room and into a corridor together. "You look a little shaky. Do you need a medic, too?"

"Just some bruised ribs," Solana said. "I'll be fine."

He shot her a severe look, which she expertly mimicked until he glanced away with a snort. "All right. I'll limit myself to worrying about you from the privacy of my own head."

"See that you do," she said, and the lighter mood finally prompted her to relax a little, loosening the tension that had been building at the base of her skull. "Dad, what exactly is going on here? I was expecting a war zone."

Her father exhaled slowly. "It's a long story, Sol. I think we're safe here for now, though that might change by tomorrow. Why don't you get some rest? I can set you up with a room in the barracks."

"How about Lantar? Assuming they ever let him out of medical."

"We should be able to set something up."

"Great." Her smile faded, and her gaze flickered to the ground. "Dad? There was a Captain Harpok at the front. I think she and her unit were killed. She did a lot to help me out."

His face shuttered. "I'll make sure she's properly honored," he said. "We're losing a lot of good people."

She glanced up at him. "Yeah," she said. "I guess we are."

"Listen, Sol, I-" He paused, as though weighing his words, then sighed again. "It's a relief to see you here, but I have a meeting. We can talk this evening at dinner."

"Uh," said Solana, and looked down at her filthy armor. "Yeah. A change of clothes and a shower wouldn't go amiss. What time is dinner here?"

"Let's say three hours, if you can wait that long." He stopped, released her arm with a faint smile. "I'll see you tonight, then. Get some rest, Sol. You may need it."

She watched him walk away. "You may need it," she echoed, under her breath. "What the hell is that supposed to mean?"

* * *

After the much-needed shower and change of clothes, nearly all vestiges of Solana's headache were gone. She'd spent most of her time under the warm water going over imaginary arguments in her head, playing through enough possibilities to put asari futurists to shame, trying to put the puzzle together. What if her father really was indoctrinated? What if General Sarus was indoctrinated and had him fooled? What if neither of them was indoctrinated, Lantar was just an idiot, and her blundering served to tear down the last vestiges of trust in their screwed-up little family?

_And what if_, she remembered Mom saying, _the sun turned into a Cartha monster and ate the moon? Worrying about what-ifs doesn't get you anywhere, Sol._

Solana paused in the doorway of her cozy little room – her father's definition of 'barracks' apparently extended to quarters that were nicer than her last apartment – and just breathed for a while, centering herself. "Sure, Mom," she said aloud, and sighed. "Don't worry. Great advice."

There was about an hour before she was due for dinner, so she figured it was worth stopping to check in on Lantar. Maybe he'd have some grand scheme in mind, they could wrap this all up, and she could go back to hiding under her desk._ Always a good sign, trusting in the guy who can't land a shuttle to come up with a plan._

She'd never been to Galatan Capital before, and the base turned out to be a positive warren of brightly lit corridors. After a few minutes of wandering around and getting snatches of rushed directions from passing noncoms, she rounded a corner and walked straight into Lantar, on his way out of the medical wing.

She was halfway through offering him a friendly smile when she recognized the look on his face as one of sheer panic. He started to turn away, and she instinctively reached for him, catching him by the new immobilizer encasing his left arm. With a yelp, he stumbled back a step, drawing curious glances from passersby.

"Sorry," she said, quickly, and took him by the shoulder, drawing him into an empty conference room just off the corridor. She took a moment to activate the standard-issue intelligence frequency scramblers on her omnitool on the off-chance they were being recorded, waited for the door to hiss shut, then rounded on Lantar. "Are you _running away_?"

He was breathing hard, practically hyperventilating, and it took her a second to realize he was terrified. It took another second to realize he was terrified of her. "I- I wasn't expecting you to come back. Not after- I mean, your father clearly knows who I am. You must, too. I just don't understand why you'd pretend to go along with-"

"Slow down," she said, holding up a hand. He snapped his mouth shut, though he was practically shaking with nervous energy. "Okay. How exactly do you know my father? He obviously knew your name."

Lantar blinked at her, then shook his head. "I- I have to get out of here. Just get me a shuttle and a head start, that's all I'm asking."

Solana leaned against the conference table, rubbing her temples. The headache was back, with a vengeance. "Lantar, I don't know what this is, but I think you're misreading the situation."

"You brought me here to kill me!" Lantar blurted.

Solana turned that one over in her head a few times, tried opening a mental file labeled 'what'. It didn't make sense from any angle. "Uh, no," she said. "I really didn't. Besides, if I'd had my way, you'd be on your own with all this and I'd be back under my desk, cowering."

His voice cracked. "But you aren't! You could've left me in that shuttle, but you came here even though your own father might be indoctrinated, even though things are falling apart. You came back here. Why would you do that? Why would you-" He paused, sucked in a deep breath. "I have to get out of here. I knew coming to Palaven was a mistake. I knew-"

Solana cut in, keeping her voice low and calm and reasonable, though her heart was pounding. "This is familiar territory for you, isn't it? You walked away once when you shouldn't have." He flinched at that, a whole-body shudder. "Look, Lantar, I don't know what your story is. I really don't. I figure I owe it to you to let you tell that story when you're ready. If you're ready. Right now, though, I need you to trust me. I'm worried about this whole indoctrination thing, and I don't want you running off and leaving me here with no proof."

He stared at her, past her, for a few moments, then exhaled heavily and slid down the wall until he was sitting on the floor, his face buried in his hands. After a moment's hesitation, Solana sat down beside him, patted his knee awkwardly. "You don't have to trust me, but if it's redemption you're after, now's your chance."

He gave a muffled sound that was almost a laugh. "I'm sorry. I guess I just panicked. I'm really, really good at fucking things up."

"I'd noticed," Solana said, deadpan, and he did laugh at that. Her racing heart was slowing to a more reasonable pace as she got to her feet, pulled him up beside her.

"Fuck," he said. "You really are related to Garrus."

Solana stared at him. "I don't really know what that means."

"Trust me, it's a compliment." He scratched the back of his neck. "So you really don't know about me and Garrus?"

"I really, really don't."

He exhaled, stared at the floor, nodded slowly. "Okay. I can work with that. I think. Well, uh, where do we go from here?"

Solana double-checked that her scramblers were operational, then slumped into one of the chairs around the conference table. "We need a strategy. Your intel – the evidence of Sarus's men's doubts. The way I see it, there are three ways we can go with it. We can make it public – and trust me when I say that'll spark a panic. Maybe if it was coming straight from Sarus's men, but now? A whole series of murky accusations can't possibly be good for the chain of command. We can tell my father, which means we're running the risk of being assassinated if it turns out he's also indoctrinated. And we can confront General Sarus directly."

Lantar winced. "I don't like that one."

"I don't like any of them. Dad's going to be meeting me for dinner soon, and I think he might have some explanations up his sleeve. Maybe-" She paused, considered. Drafted a surprisingly short document in her head entitled 'things-that-could-go-terribly-wrong-with-this-plan'. "You know, the best way to get a read on him would be to provoke an emotional reaction."

"Why do I get the feeling I'm not going to like this plan?"

She smiled. "How do you feel about dinner parties?"

* * *

As it turned out, the reaction was somewhat less spectacular than she'd been anticipating.

When she reintroduced Lantar, who'd hastily showered and made himself at least partway presentable, her father merely nodded politely and offered him a chair, as though he'd been expecting the late addition all along. _And now I'm paranoid all over again about those frequency scramblers._ They sat in silence for a few moments while Solana frantically tried to think of something to say that wasn't, "Hey Dad, we've got a bet going – are you nothing but a tool for a giant killer machine race?"

Then the door opened again, and a tall, distinguished figure in an instantly recognizable uniform strode in. Solana managed to keep her reaction to a startled inhale, but Lantar choked on his wine and had to go stand in a corner of the room for a few moments while he hacked up a lung.

"I think you remember General Sarus," her father said. His voice was smooth, calm, betraying nothing.

She gaped at him, then managed, "Good to see you again, General. It's been a very long time."

Sarus beamed, mandibles flaring out comically. "I should say! Last I saw you, young Solana, you were much shorter and considerably louder. When your father issued me an invitation to join you for dinner, I couldn't say no, could I?" He seated himself to her left – her father's right – and launched into a rapturous description of the talents of the base's new cook, pausing only to exchange introductions with Lantar, who'd finally stopped choking and rejoined the group.

_Okay,_ Solana was thinking, her voice high and frantic even in her own mind, _okay, this isn't a complete disaster yet. You might learn a lot this way. Yeah._ She glanced across the table at her father, and found him staring back at her with piercing, searching eyes. Her heart was racing. This was going very wrong very quickly.

Sarus, meanwhile, had clearly found his favorite topic and was expanding on it. "I swear, the man's a genius. Bit odd, always muttering, stares a lot, but positively a genius with talanga fruit. He served it stuffed in a roast kara bird the other night! On a military base, that kind of cooking! Can you imagine? Brilliant medley of flavors, I tell you." Sarus sank back in his chair with a satisfied smile. "We're certainly in for a treat tonight."

"I'll bet we are," Lantar mumbled, and Solana kicked him under the table.

"And you, my boy," Sarus said, and Lantar's spine went ramrod-straight. "I apologize, I don't know the first thing about you. Whereabouts do you hail from? Are you some childhood friend of Solana's? A beau, perhaps?"

Solana winced. The hide on the back of Lantar's neck took on a darker hue. "Uh," he said, and she knew before he spoke that he would be far too flustered to give anything but a straight answer. _Chalk one up for the old general._ "Um. Invictus, actually. I grew up on Invictus."

Sarus's eyes widened. "Spirits. That's not a very easy place to grow up."

"It was okay."

"You're a better man than I if you made if off that rock," Sarus said. Lantar flinched as if struck, and the general added, "Oh, I'm terribly sorry, you must think I'm a complete Palaven-dwelling prude. I will confess that my experience of the colonies hasn't been the most favorable, but I'm certain they have much to recommend them."

"Not… not really," Lantar said, and took a determined swig of wine. They'd agreed beforehand to go easy on the drinks, but Solana wasn't going to begrudge him that one.

"General," she said, drawing his attention. "I was just talking to my father about how quiet it is here, considering much of the rest of the planet is a warzone." She paused for a moment, then made her voice deliberately light. "What's your secret?"

From the corner of her eye, she saw her father's jaw tighten. Sarus, however, merely shrugged. "That's how it goes in war. Some places are hubs of activity, others are neglected. We're not a particularly strategic position, and we've taken great pains to ensure traffic in the area is limited – your little crash landing caused quite a stir, by the way – and so far the Reapers seem to think that warrants leaving us alone for now. We've either pulled one over on them, or we really are as useless as they think."

"I'm certain that's not the case," her father said softly.

Sarus sighed. "Be that as it may, I understand your concerns, Solana. Reaper forces were occupying this city until fairly recently, in fact, but they pulled out to strengthen the attack on juicier targets. They can very confidently make this a war of attrition if they so desire, you know, chipping away at the larger targets and leaving the smaller ones to starve themselves out of a siege. They have all the time and resources they need. We, on the other hand-" He exhaled again, stared mournfully into his wine glass. "These are dark days indeed, my friends."

They were all silent for a long moment. _Damn,_ Solana thought, _I wish indoctrinated servants had a big, flashing light over their head or something. This guy seems sincere._ And she was trying to picture him heartlessly ordering his troops out to be slaughtered, but she could barely imagine him raising his voice in anger. Her mental file marked 'suspicious-things' was coming up empty – no micro-expressions, no nervous tics, no suspicious syntax. Her father was being far more suspicious. Hell, _she_ was being far more suspicious, if it came to that.

She opened her mouth to say something, but was interrupted when her father stood up so suddenly he nearly knocked his chair over. "Sidonis," he said, in a tight, cool voice, a smooth cap barely concealing something that bubbled and spat beneath the surface. "I have a small matter to discuss with you. Will you come with me back to the kitchen?"

Lantar nearly choked on his drink again, and sat frozen for a long moment. Solana stopped breathing. "Uh," he said, and stood up clumsily, rubbing at the immobilizer on his arm. He glanced to Solana, glanced back at her father. "Um, sure, just for a minute."

Solana was pretty sure that was the worst possible thing for him to do just now, but the mental file she'd dubbed 'solutions-to-this-particular-problem' was full of nonsense. Jump on the table and yell fire? Throw wine in Lantar's face and call him a cad and race off into the sunset, never to be seen again? Point a talon at Sarus and accuse him of treason in her most dramatic voice?

Her father had left the room while these scenarios were playing themselves out in her mind, Lantar lagging at his heels. She was breathing way too fast, practically hyperventilating. She was acutely aware of the seventeen blades she'd managed to hide within her civilian clothing.

Sarus cast her a pitying glance. "Ah, that's always a difficult conversation. I was so looking forward to terrorizing my daughter's potential suitors, but she never did bring any home, just up and married one day."

"What? No. What? We're not-" Solana stood up. "Excuse me, general. I really, really have to, er. Go." With that, she bolted for the door, barely hearing his call of, "That's the price you pay for truly great cuisine, I'm afraid!"

Every plan she'd half-formulated fled her mind entirely at the crack of a gunshot. She slammed into the kitchen at a sprint, then stumbled to a stop.

The first person she saw was the cook, who looked to be in a state of shock, muttering to himself and staring blankly across the room. She followed his gaze.

Lantar was sprawled on the floor, staring in bewildered awe at a thin gash of blood along the side of his arm, shockingly blue against his light tunic. Her father was standing over him, pistol in hand, and he was shaking violently, stumbling back, and then he was looking up, his eyes wide.

"Dad?"

"He deserves it, Sol. He deserves worse. I don't know what you think you're playing at, but he deserves so much worse." She'd never heard her father's voice so low, so angry, so desperately hurting.

Solana raised her hands. "What is this, Dad? What-"

"This bastard betrayed Garrus," he spat. "Ten people died just so he could keep his worthless hide intact. Garrus would have been the eleventh. Almost was. You saw the scars, Sol. I only got the whole story from him when he came home. He nearly bled out in that hellhole, alone and forgotten, and this little shit is the one who made it happen."

Lantar, apparently snapping out of his earlier catatonia, curled in on himself, hunched over the fresh wound. "I tried," he said, and his voice was low and tired. "I keep trying."

Solana felt a cold, determined calm stealing over her. She'd always been the type to sit down and puzzle something out rather than blowing it out of proportion, and now she was slipping pieces together, the little bits that hadn't quite fit before. New information made a new picture.

"Dad," Solana said, and strode forward, snatched the gun from her father's shaking hand. "This isn't you. All those years lecturing us to do the right thing. To do right by the law. This isn't you."

His eyes were fixed on Lantar. "I was wrong."

"No." She gave him a little shove, which startled him into meeting her gaze. "And you know it."

He made a brief attempt at staring her down - _don't give me that, Dad, you haven't managed it since I was four_ - then blinked once, twice, his features twisting into confusion. "You didn't know, did you? Why- why would you bring him here? I thought maybe you had some elaborate revenge planned, I thought maybe-"

Solana took a deep breath, glanced up at the ceiling, trying to run through a mental tally of all the little moments that just hadn't quite added up since she'd arrived, all the suspicious glances, the wrong words, the wrong actions. Spirits. She had to risk it. She had to.

"Dad," she said, "Lantar has evidence of an indoctrinated agent operating at a high level within the Hierarchy."

He blinked at her again, then a slow, horrified understanding dawned over his features. "And you thought I-?"

"Not really," Solana said, quickly. _After all, lying is easy when you let the other guy fill in the blanks_. "Actually, the evidence implicates General Sarus."

Her father's eyes went wide, and then his brow ridge slid down in thought. He glanced back to Lantar, who met his gaze with a steadiness that surprised Solana. "Sarus? I never-"

"Uh," said a voice behind her, somewhat less jovial now. "I apologize for eavesdropping, but I can't help feeling this conversation should probably include me."

They all turned. General Sarus was standing in the kitchen's doorway, clutching it for support, his face gone ashen.

_Hey,_ chirped a far-too-cheerful voice in Solana's head, _this is going well_.

"You have evidence of… of what, exactly?" Sarus said, weakly. "Me? Indoctrinated? I don't-"

Lantar was pulling himself to his feet. "Your troops tried to send a report back after your orders started becoming suspicious," he said, and his voice was stronger, more confident, but he wouldn't meet Solana's eyes. "It was intercepted, but I have a copy of it."

Sarus blinked at him, then sank into a nearby chair. "Spirits," he said. "Is this- is this the sort of thing that can happen without one knowing? I can't recall, I was so ill, I can't recall sending an order that would have changed things, I can't-"

Her father rounded on him, raising his pistol again. "Sarus, what the hell did you do?"

"I never, I wouldn't-"

The final piece slipped into place. Solana reached out to steady herself against a wall. "You were ill," she said, and her breathless words broke over the raised voices with ease. "I remember that. You were on medical leave right after you sent your men what became their final orders."

"The new cook here is truly wonderful, but my old constitution can't quite handle his gourmet fare," Sarus said, a little dazedly. "Got too used to field rations, I imagine. Spent most of that week in a fever and, well, in the facilities."

Solana looked to her father. He was staring at her like she'd grown another head. Lantar, on the other hand, was getting it, judging by the way his jaw had dropped. "It'd be easy," she said. "So easy, in the middle of all this. Send out incomplete orders, dangerous orders, let the others fill in the blanks. If you have to tell a lie, you might as well let someone else do most of the lying for you."

Sarus lapsed into a baffled silence. "Wait, are you trying to tell me that you're indoctrinated?"

Her father took a step forward. "I wouldn't repeat that accusation, if I were you."

Helplessly, Sarus threw up his hands. "So is he indoctrinated?"

"Do you think this misdirection is fooling anyone?"

Lantar bounded forward, raised his hands. "Okay, everyone, just _shut the fuck up_." Three pairs of eyes turned to him. He lowered his hands. "Uh. Sorry. I just wanted to get in on all the yelling."

"It's the cook," Solana said, weakly. "I can't believe I'm saying this. General, I think your cook has been poisoning you and giving you false orders to send to your troops."

Lantar finally met her eyes. She had to stifle a nervous laugh at his wide-eyed expression, saw him do the same. Sarus and her father stared at each other, then at her.

Her father was the first to speak. "What," he said.

"He did show up from nowhere," Sarus said, softly. "Wanted to help with the war effort any way he could, we figured. Strange fellow, very quiet, always muttering to himself."

"No wonder the Reapers have been staying away," Solana said. "You're a convenient puppet they haven't had to indoctrinate – I mean, protocols have been in place since day one ensuring that commanding officers are kept out of situations where indoctrination is likely. It's not a perfect science, but it's certainly seemed to be a decent approach to the problem. Now, indoctrinating a cook is a bit of an easier business."

"Um," Lantar said, "this is very nice and all, but am I the only one who realizes we're currently standing in the kitchen? Aren't cooks typically found in kitchens?"

They stood in silence for a few moments, just letting that sink in.

"Oh," said Solana, at last. "That... that can't be good."

The ceiling exploded.


	7. Steel and Shadows: 3: Future Imperfect

**Shadows and Steel: 3: Future Imperfect**

Solana was underwater.

She was underwater, and things drowned with her beneath the waves, things that were dark and deep and fathomless, brushing against her scales, whispering at the back of her mind.

_Stay_, they said.

_Breathe_, they said.

"Anytime you want to wake up, now, that'd be great," they said.

Wait. Hang on. What?

She opened her eyes, squinted for a moment, then split into a jaw-cracking yawn. Lantar, leaning over her, inhaled sharply and stumbled back a step. "Fuck me," he said. "That actually worked."

"Mrph," Solana said, cleverly, and rolled over. She was lying on a cool, hard bed that felt wonderful against her back, which was aching for some reason. _Getting old, Sol_? Her eyes were just starting to drift shut when it hit.

"There it is," Lantar said, with unbearable smugness.

Solana sat bolt upright, then winced and dropped back down as pain shot up her leg. "Wait, what the hell happened? The cook? Sarus? Dad?"

"Good question, dead, confused, terrifying," Lantar said, ticking off the responses on his fingers. "Do you remember the explosion?"

Solana thought about it. "Wow," she said. "The cook was standing right there the whole time, right? We're sort of idiots."

"Pretty much."

She looked at him more closely. There was a fresh groove in one of his faceplates, fairly deep, and he was wearing different clothes, proper armor by the looks of things. "Wait, did you join the infantry while I was asleep?"

He snorted a laugh. "That'd be the end of the Hierarchy as we know it," he said. "And just so you know, I'm very jealous of those painkillers you got. Broken leg's clearly the way to go."

"Lantar."

Holding out his hands in a gesture of surrender, he pulled up a nearby chair and sank down. "You've been out for around a day, I guess. Well, you were only out for a couple minutes, but you weren't really with it until we pulled you from under the rubble. And then the medic gave you the painkillers and you were _really_ out of it. And my clothes got all fucked up in the scramble, so I got myself some shiny new armor." He grinned down at it. She rolled her eyes.

Trying to piece this particular puzzle together was like wading through thick mud, which was bringing back all kinds of nasty memories from basic training. There was the one guy who always- Wait. No. Concentrate. Puzzle. "Where are we?"

Lantar's vaguely amused expression faded. "All of us made it to an evac ship – your father and Sarus are discussing strategy up in the main cabin, I think. Galatan City is lost. The Reapers descended on it all at once – I guess our cook alerted them right before he blew himself up. We barely got out of there alive, and that is definitely a story for another day. For now, we're headed for the Citadel to see if we can meet up with some other refugees and get a solid strategy session going."

Solana blew out a slow breath, thinking again of that nice, spacious desk she could be hiding under right this very moment. It didn't seem all that comforting just now. "Dad can't be happy about evacuating."

"Oh man, he was pissed off. Thought he was going to take a swing at me." He thought about that for a second. "Actually, he still might. I'm not sure he's entirely ruled out the whole shooting-me thing, either."

"Uh," Solana said. "About that."

Lantar looked down at his arm, where the bullet had grazed it, but his voice was steady, solid. "Every word he said was true. And what's worse, Garrus caught up with me, after. I don't know how – I was meant to disappear completely, but I guess I couldn't exactly trust the bastards who kidnapped me and tortured me. I can't make excuses. I betrayed the only people who meant a damn to me, and they died because of it.

"And then I'm on the Citadel, just feeling sorry for myself, and there's fucking Commander Shepard telling me Garrus is waiting on the catwalk with a bullet with my name on it. And she's standing between me and him, and I'm thinking I could push her away, let him take the shot, but I'm too much of a fucking coward even for that. And then he decides to let me live, and what can I even say to that, that twisted mercy? That I'll try to do better? You don't get a second chance after that. Something like that, you're dead inside and your body just keeps going."

Solana exhaled, staring up at the ceiling. The painkillers were clouding her thoughts again, and she was starting to drift, but this was important, she had to concentrate. "I'm a really shitty soldier," she said, which wasn't exactly what she'd meant to say, but she ran with it. "I was hopeless at basic training. Screwed up like you wouldn't imagine. I eventually figured out why. I don't get the whole chest-pounding honor thing. I don't believe there's a person out there who wouldn't crack under some form of pressure. I don't think that makes us cowards."

She reached out, tapped a talon against his chest. "I don't think you're dead, Lantar. I don't think you're a coward for wanting to live. You're not a soldier, is all. That's the Hierarchy code, right? You never promote someone before they're ready, and if you do, it's on you. Garrus has never really understood that, not where it counts. He's too quick to trust, to hand out respect and responsibility." She sighed. "Look, it's like this: a big part of what happened was on him, and it was easier to face you than to face himself."

Lantar was still staring down at his arm. His shoulders were shaking.

"Spirits," Solana said, vaguely. "I never really thought of it that way. We're just one big Hierarchy of guilt issues, aren't we?"

That sparked a faint, tired smile, a little quirk of his mandibles. "Just like that, huh? Start living again?"

"Well, no, I'd imagine there's years – if not decades – of incredibly expensive therapy involved." She grinned, and his half-smile widened in response. "But yeah, eventually. You do things right. You do things better."

He finally met her gaze directly, then sighed and shook his head. "You know, you almost make me think I could pull that off."

And there was something different in his voice, something new that her cloudy mind was having trouble focusing on, so she opened a new file marked 'things-to-think-about-another-day'. Another puzzle. She smiled, sleepily, then blinked as another thought occurred to her. "Hey," she said, "I never got to use my knives."

"Yeah, those were a real treat to find while we were trying to drag you out from under the debris. You're kind of a terrifying person, you know that?" Lantar stood up, patted the side of the bed a bit awkwardly. "Get some rest. We'll talk later, spy."

"Badass spy," Solana corrected.

Shaking his head, he left the room, dimming the lights as he went.

Solana rolled onto her side again, stared out the viewport at the starscape beyond, wondering which of the faint specks of light was Trebia, trying to bring to mind images of Palaven, trying to recall the things that she knew she'd probably never see again. The only memory that actually seemed real, tangible, was the raspy growl of a summer storm, and even that was fading, slipping away, and maybe that was a blessing, maybe that was a kindness, a strange mercy, the forgetting. Life moved on. Everything changed.

Solana closed her eyes and dreamed of the future.


	8. Epilogue: Just Like New Times

**Epilogue: Just Like New Times**

London was burning.

Garrus Vakarian couldn't quite suppress a smile, watching five kids struggle to lob a chunk of wooden debris into the bonfire. They managed it eventually, though the littlest one tumbled over and lay blinking at the night sky until his father came and scooped him up. There was a moment of breathless silence as the misty rain danced around the blaze, and then the crowd cheered as the wood finally sparked and caught, a fresh beacon of light against the gloom. The air had a tang of smoke to it that was surprisingly pleasant, carrying no traces of the acrid, bloody, metallic stench of the war. Down the city's labyrinthine streets, past the skeletons of half-reconstructed buildings, he could see similar blazes, spontaneous, old-fashioned celebrations, complete with laughing, singing, music echoing somewhere, eerie and soothing all at once.

One year.

Despite the best efforts of the Earth's famed weather regulators, the rain was starting to intensify, sizzling and spitting against the bonfire – a byproduct, he figured, of all the debris still clogging Earth's upper orbit. He raised the hood of his jacket over his fringe, talons lingering on the soft, delicate fabric. He hadn't worn armor in months, but the feel of it was in his scales now, deeper. Inhaling the smoke and rain, he leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms, content to be outside the group, content to merely let the sound wash over him. Content.

"Strange, the difference a year can make."

He didn't jump at the voice, registering the smile in it before the words themselves. "You're getting suspiciously good at sneaking around in the dark, T'Soni. Taking the 'shadow' part of the job to heart?"

"Any good information broker knows the importance of maintaining only the highest standards when it comes to lurking." She too had a dark hood over her head, half-concealing her face, and he figured she'd opted for camouflage for the same reason as him: after the first hundred or so, hero's welcomes started wearing thin. "I thought I might find you here."

Garrus shrugged, attention drawn back to the crowd and the fire. "We all agreed to meet here one year later. It's one year later. I'm punctual." He cleared his throat, straightened up. "Is anyone else-?"

Liara pushed her hands into her pockets, rocked on her toes, a new nervous habit. "Oh, you know. There's a lot going on. New alliances to broker, new peaces to keep, new wars to plan. Everyone's very busy, I'm sure-"

"So you're saying we're it?"

"We're it."

Rain was dripping from the edge of his hood, and he swiped at it with his sleeve, then sighed and stared up at the sky. The moon was visible through breaks in the cloud, a faint light behind them, there and gone, there and gone. The rain felt good against his scales. "I keep looking up there and expecting to see that beam, the light. It was right here."

"The one leading to the Citadel," Liara said, and he knew then that she was watching him, that they'd all been watching him.

Now that he'd brought it up, he couldn't banish the image of the pillar of light from his mind. He looked away, back to the bonfire. "I, ah, I can't remember what she said. Did I ever tell you that?"

"Sorry?" But her hand was already on his arm, offering comfort, responding to the tone, not the words. He couldn't look at her.

"Shepard. At the beam. I don't remember it at all."

She was quiet for a moment, they both were, and they watched the flames flicker uncertainly under the fresh deluge of rain. He knew she remembered, that she'd heard, and it jolted him to his core when he realized he didn't want to know, not really. Better this way. Her hand tightened on his arm for a moment, then she stepped away, shaking her head. "It's not- I mean, Garrus, you were hurt."

Someone at the bonfire was telling a story to uproarious laughter. He laughed, too, a harsh echo. "I slept through the end of the war, T'Soni. After all that, after putting everything I have into it, I just wake up and Chakwas is standing there telling me it's over."

To his surprise, Liara gave a derisive snort. He blinked, stared at her. "Trust me, Garrus, if Shepard taught me anything at all, it's that nothing's ever really over. Things are changing." She tapped a finger to her own chest, waved a hand toward him. "The war's still here, inside every one of us, every soldier, every orphan, everyone who lost a home. We all took all that hate and fear and anger inside ourselves and let it change us. You can't tell me this is over. Nothing will ever be the same again."

Garrus sighed, swiped the rain from his face again, tried not to think about the things Liara had to know, tried to ignore the new quaver in her voice. Disappointed yells signaled the death of the bonfire, smoldering away to embers under a renewed downpour. He shifted, still feeling the weight of a rifle hanging between his shoulders. _We took it inside ourselves_.

"It's not all bad," he said. "Just new. Different."

She shook her head, but he could hear the smile in her voice. "You know me, Garrus. I've always preferred the old to the new. Preferably the very, very old."

He grinned. "And how is Javik these days?"

She groaned, surprised him with a sharp jab of her elbow. "Don't get me started on him. Feron's been egging him on. They take turns telling people how primitive they are. It's been difficult getting him to focus on the book."

Garrus felt his whole body start to uncoil, settling into more familiar territory. "You're still planning on writing that book?"

"Trying to plan on writing it. It's a work in progress."

"You've certainly got your pick of publishers. Just, ah, keep Javik away from any book-signings."

She snorted again, and they lapsed into a comfortable silence. He'd always appreciated that about her – oh, sure, she was nosy and more than a little prone to speaking her mind without thinking about it, and occasionally she could've given Mordin a run for his money on the whole mad-scientist thing, but she'd also been alone long enough to have mastered the art of not saying a word. That was a rare gift.

Soon enough, the rain started coming down harder, and in an unspoken agreement they moved back under the overhang of a roof. He stared toward the fire, to the people still valiantly trying to start it up again. "I, ah, I've been wondering. How do asari cope with loss and change? I mean, a thousand years. I've always wondered, but-"

Liara shrugged. "You'll get different answers from different people. Mother used to say we had to take a philosophical approach. Many embrace religion – after losing so many friends, the promise of their finding peace isn't just tempting, it can be absolutely necessary. I suspect the truth is that nobody ever really knows how to deal with-" She waved a hand. "-with all this. Have you considered that we are the first civilizations in… in millions of years who don't have the Reapers lurking in the shadows, waiting to cause our extinction? This is- well, it's uncharted territory, isn't it? Who knows what we could accomplish?"

Garrus leaned back against a wall, crossing his arms, and smirked. "Makes you wonder what else is waiting in the shadows, doesn't it? Maybe something else is out there on a fifty-thousand-and-one year schedule of extinction, and the Reapers just always beat them to it."

"As optimistic as ever. Besides, if the experimental quantum entanglement drives ever-" She paused. "Wait. You didn't just hear me say that."

"That sounded an awful lot like something awfully classified."

She sniffed. "I have no idea what you're talking about. There certainly isn't a major coalition of scientists working round-the-clock using recent technological advances to develop a means of traveling to other galaxies. Anyone who says otherwise is, er, clearly lying."

"Extragalactic travel," he said, testing the words on his tongue. It was, well, it was big. Bigger than he could properly fathom. New resources, new planets, new places- new people. New threats. New wars. New devastation.

New stories. New hope.

"You didn't hear it from me," Liara said.

"Of course."

Before he could probe for more information, a new round of cheering broke out, over by the remains of the bonfire. He exchanged glances with Liara, who shrugged, and they stepped back toward the crowd.

The fire was definitely out, but its embers were still burning, little glowing half-sheltered pockets of heat and warmth. A few humans were crouched down next to the embers, and with little sticks held to the embers they were toasting something that smelled almost sickeningly sweet. The children were delirious with joy, dancing in the rain, tearing into their new treats, and the adults were laughing and joking and smiling.

"I'm glad I came," Liara said. "I think I needed to see this."

"Yeah," Garrus said, and thought about going home, not just for meetings or diplomatic talks or endless debriefings, but really _going home_, staying with Sol and Dad and trying to build something up instead of tearing it down.

Liara held a hand up to shade her eyes while she squinted at the sky. "Is the rain letting up a little, or is it just me?"

Garrus attempted the same manoeuver and had to blink a couple of massive raindrops out of his eyes. "I think it's just you."

"All right, then," she said, and, after a moment's hesitation, she hooked an arm through his. "We'll weather this storm, just like we weathered every storm before it."

He laughed. "Didn't you just finish lecturing me about how nothing ever stays the same?"

She smiled, looking more relaxed than he'd ever seen her. "Not quite. I said everything changes. We stay the same."

Childrens' shrieks and giggles from around the bonfire marked the death-by-fire of one of their precious confections. Garrus watched it flare and sizzle away, watched a bit of ash drift up and up into the sky, buffeted by raindrops, until he lost sight of it, and then he just watched the rain. The ghost of the beam was gone, leaving only streaks of water against the dull bruise of the sky. He couldn't see the moon anymore, blanketed as it was by cloud, but he knew it would be there when the storm cleared up.

So would the stars.


End file.
